


Spy Games

by Aoidos



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), London Spy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:40:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoidos/pseuds/Aoidos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Times are changing at MI6. The next batch of Double O agents are expected to be a hybrid of Q branch and the Double O program, and Q is charged with training the next generation of agents—including 009.</p><p>A lovesick Q must focus on his next important mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The role of 009 is played by Alex Turner from London Spy AKA Edward Holcroft
> 
> Fic contains references to previous Bond films, so viewing Skyfall and Spectre may be helpful.

Chopin’s ninth Nocturne filters via small, white buds into Q’s ears as his fingertips clammer against the keyboard. Q branch has an official home inside MI6’s new facilities: no longer in the basement, once more contained within a cube of glass and sterile surfaces. On quiet days, he’s permitted a moment of solace where this—a few hours of uninterrupted work, the luxury of using a personal music device—is possible. It’s been a month since the showdown on Westminster Bridge and Blofeld’s arrest, and also approximately thirty days since 007 has made contact with Q branch. Officially, of course. Unofficially, Q was the last person to see MI6’s most valuable agent.

The higher-ups (M, Tanner, and a series of dour-faced suits Q only ever sees in flashes between the opening and closing of doors during top secret meetings) have been placing firm, steady pressure to the back of Q’s neck regarding the whereabouts of 007. He’s been insisting that Bond is precisely where he’s supposed to be stationed, even though that’s the half-truth. Frequently, the agent strays and Q knows, even before consulting SmartBlood, that Bond is staying at some luxury resort on a remote beach in the Mediterranean, inside a lush suite, tangled in crisp sheets with Madeleine.

He jabs at the side of the device to turn up the music. Spine straightening (he always stands while coding, never sits), and rolling his neck until hearing the series of satisfying pops. He clears his throat, squints at the screen, and resumes rapid coding.

He’s been lying, is the point, and Tanner knows it. Somewhere in his thick MI6 file is the word _collaborator_ , but that has always been the price tag of being James Bond’s one true confidant. Q knows this, and for years he’s unflinchingly carried the burden—until now.

Something broke in him the last time he saw the agent, when the elevator doors opened and he thought—stupidly, _so_ stupidly—that something could happen between them. In retrospect, his optimism is humiliating. Of course Bond hadn’t wanted him. He’d wanted the bloody car—the Aston Martin—for his elopement with _her_. If Q tallies all the sacrifices he’s made: nearly giving himself a heart attack by boarding a plane to Austria, narrowly avoiding being gunned down by enemy agents and being sacked by M and quite possibly charged for treasonous acts against the Queen—it makes him dizzy and his face burns in embarrassment.

He’s been carrying on like a schoolboy with a crush. And Bond hasn’t ever thanked him. He’s comforted himself by imagining theirs is a partnership that needs no verbal reciprocation—the twinkle in Bond’s eyes and his knowing smirk are thanks enough—but the emotional starvation is a daily reminder this is untrue. He needs more. He needs Bond to acknowledge him beyond the times he comes to Q for favors.

Severing ties isn’t an option. This isn’t like the old days whenever Q developed a painful, unrelenting (and unreciprocated) crush, where he would simply disappear: quit, unfriend on social media, sever ties with a circle of friends, move to a different city. He’s stuck here with the specific job requirement of checking in with Bond every few hours, activating SmartBlood, and creating a largely fictionalized dossier of Bond’s activities ( _Yes, he’s been stationed in Athens, No he hasn’t fucked off to some gorgeous white beach_ ) that he must then present to M with a straight face, and then field the obligatory onslaught of incredulous questions.

It’s because of this most recent rhythm that he is unsurprised when the desk’s intercom flashes white. He pauses the music, taps the incoming calls button, and says, “Q.”

“It’s Tanner. M wants to see you in his office.”

“Right, I’ll be there shortly.”

The doors _whoosh_ open and Q steps out into the hallway, walks five paces, and turns right down another corridor just as Moneypenny strolls past him in the opposite directly. She’s wearing a peach pencil skirt and cream chiffon blouse. “Off to the gallows?” she greets. Tanner may have forgotten about their temporary comradeship during the harrowing Blofeld ordeal, but she has not. Moneypenny is, without question, his favorite person at MI6 and his chest loosens slightly upon seeing her. The sensation lasts for only a few seconds—just as long as it takes for their ships to pass, her heels clicking on the lacquered floor—but she must spot some hunted quality in his eyes because she adds, “I’ll come round in a bit to see you.”

“Cheers,” is the only response he can muster.

M is behind his desk, Tanner seated by a nearby window, both their chairs pointed at a lone seat located on the other side of the desk. As he crosses the room and sits, Q is reminded of a firing squad. “Thank you for coming,” M says, as though he had any choice in the matter, “I imagine you already know what this is about.”

“007,” Q says, not seeing a reason (yet) to lie. He adjusts his glasses and glances to Tanner, “Last I checked, he’s still stationed in Athens.”

“Q…” Tanner sighs, fidgeting in his seat. He looks exacerbated, “We know you’ve been making certain…accommodations for 007. We know you’re very fond of him.”

His brows arch, face warming at the implication. Has he been incredibly obvious this whole time? Does everyone know? Insecurity flushed out by a flare of anger. _That’s rich_ , he wants to say, _coming from two blokes who helped me lay a trail for Silva to follow back then when Bond needed us_. In those days, Tanner collaborated without a second thought, and Mallory simply instructed them not to get nabbed by the Prime Minister. He’s noticed a theme with these two men, who are willing to join forces in the short-term, but are no where to be found when it’s Q’s head on the chopping block. “I wasn’t aware I’m the only one who’s _fond_ of him,” he spits, casting a furious look Tanner’s way.

“I beg your pardon?” Tanner snaps, voice raising, knowing exactly the moment to which Q is referring.

“That’s enough,” M interrupts, palm raised, “No need to get defensive. You’re a superb quartermaster and your job is not in jeopardy.” Q relaxes minutely at this proclamation, though he remains mildly suspicious because M’s never actually paid him a compliment, “I realize I’ve placed you in a precarious position as Bond’s handler. He’s the best for a reason, not least of which is his inclination to break the rules, but then I pull you into these meetings in which you become a surrogate for all his censures.” He offers a weak smile. “Mixed messages, I suppose.”

Q opens his mouth, stunned. He’s been privately (and bitterly) thinking these things for so long that it’s utterly bizarre to hear M say them.

No matter. M continues: “We’re going to switch your job emphasis away from field agents to the in-house Double Os.”

Q stares at him for a moment, blinking owlishly. “But that’s what C wanted: to close down the Double O section—“

“We’re not closing it. MI6 will always need agents to squeeze triggers in the field, but we’re training a whole new generation who are better versed in computers, sciences, and maths. Because this unit is in its infancy, we’d like our quartermaster to devote his attention to these agents.”

“Think of them as a fusion of Q branch and the Double Os,” Tanner suggests, no longer of purple complexion.

He remains unconvinced, brow furrowing. “Once you have them, there won’t be much use for Q branch or the Double Os.”

“I doubt we’ll ever find a replacement for you or Bond,” M offers, smirking, but Q can’t help wondering if his praise is a form of misdirection. “MI6 is woefully underprepared for elite hackers. We saw that during the Silva breech,” he adds, and Q does not miss the subtle dig, the Silva ordeal having occurred when he’d only just become head of Q branch. “The in-house Double Os will be a sort of assistance program, deployable here when you need them, but also capable of support in the field.”

“We’d like you start with one of the in-house Double Os in a sort of pilot program, and then depending on how that goes, we’ll expand the program,” Tanner says.

“Who?” Q asks.

“009,” M says, plucking a pair of reading glasses from his desk and perching them at the tip of his nose as he reads an open file in front of him, “With whom you are already familiar.”

Q nearly cringes. He’s not as familiar with any of the Double Os as he is Bond, but his interactions with 009 have always had a particularly awkward element to them since Bond has a penchant for nicking the other agent’s mission tools, most recently the Aston Martin. “Uh, yes,” he articulately replies. Their interactions have been limited to a handful of words, hardly a solid foundation for a productive partnership.

“He’s brilliant,” Tanner volunteers, perhaps detecting that Q is weakly treading water, “Testing is off the charts. A master of coding and cryptology.” 

“How are his field scores?”

Tanner shifts in his seat and looks to M, who smiles slightly and slowly closes the file. “As I said, we’re more concerned with developing hybrid agents with strengths in both fields.”

 _That means rubbish then_. Or at least subpar. Not matching the standards of, say, a 007.

“He’s making improvements in the field,” Tanner says.

A Herculean effort not to roll his eyes, but some of the snideness bleeds through his question: “If he’s so brilliant, why does he need my help?”

Tanner and M share a wary glance, which interests him because he’s rarely seen either of them hesitate. “009 was red-flagged during one part in his psychiatric review. He has a borderline personality disorder. Our psychiatrist isn’t sure if it’s a mild form of autism, or perhaps Aspergers. He has a difficult time making interpersonal connections and it’s become a restriction on the job.”

“I’m not a trained psychiatrist,” Q scoffs.

“I understand that. What we’re asking of you is to go outside your comfort zone for the sake of the pilot program. You’re our best coder and hacker. You’re the head of Q branch. If 009 shows improvements working with you, we’ll know two things,” Tanner says, raising his pinky, “First, the program works,” up comes his ring finger, “And second, that 009 is capable of working with other agents in MI6.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Q sighs, “When have we ever coddled an agent like this?”

“He’s worth it, Q,” Tanner replies, with surprising sincerity, “Trust us. He truly is. We want him on board.”

He stares at Tanner for a moment, gaze sliding over to consider M. “I don’t suppose I have any say in the matter anyway.”

M smiles thinly. “Not really.”

 

* * *

 

He returns to his workstation and resumes listening to music whilst coding, though he can’t really focus because he’s replaying the bizarre meeting with M. A large part of him can’t squash the feeling that he (and the Double Os) will be replaced by these new hybrid agents. But then he secretly accesses 009’s file (full name: Alistair Turner), reads the full psychiatric report, and his paranoia is eased by the realization that the agent is, frankly, utterly inept at personal relationships. Judging by his daily itinerary, it seems MI6 keeps him largely locked away to do his calculations, but the handful of times he’s been permitted to roam about have been disasters.

 _Arrogant, smug, emotionally callous_ are just a few of the descriptors written in the additional notes section of his file. _Seems incapable of processing or unwilling to acknowledge the feelings of others_.

Q is so immersed in the file that he fails to detect Moneypenny entering the room. She appears at his side and mouths something. Q jumps and removes a bud, “Sorry, pardon?”

She gestures to the screen where there is an employee file photo of 009. “I said, he’s an odd one.”

He pulls the other bud from his ear and turns to face her. “You know 009?”

“Of course,” she smirks, easing onto the corner of his desk. “Back when I worked in the field. The first thing he said to me was, ‘I didn’t think women could be field agents.’”

“Christ,” Q sighs, “I’ve been charged with babysitting him.”

She winces. “Rotten luck, though I’ve heard he’s quite brilliant. He’s just, you know..” She glances over her shoulder, to make sure they’re alone, and then leans close to conspiratorially whisper, “A bit of a wanker.”

Q chuckles and shakes his head as he clicks out of the file. The last thing he needs is for a superior to catch him snooping in someone’s classified file. “I imagine this is my punishment for helping 007,” he smiles weakly.

The words seem to stir Moneypenny’s memory of their brief interaction in the hallway. “I wanted to ask…” she begins, head cocked to the side, eyes soft and probing in a way that makes Q’s face warm, “What’s been going on with you? You’ve seemed…off.” She means his skittish behavior, which is really only the surface of his suffering. Unbeknownst to the likes of Moneypenny, he’s also been suffering from insomnia and lack of appetite. “Is it about James?” Her intuition, and the use of Bond’s first name (an intimidate act), surprise him. His head snaps up, eyes widened beneath the lenses. Moneypenny has always been clever like that. She should be an interrogator.

He thinks quickly, willing his tongue to deny it. “No, it’s just…work. I’ve been overwhelmed.”

There’s a wisdom in her gaze, perhaps a little pity too. She sees through him, and the thought makes his cheeks burn. “Can I give you a bit of advice?” she asks, and he’s so terrified that all he can do is nod. “Find a life outside of James.”

“I’m not—“ he objects, but she silences him with a quirk of her brows.

 _Please_ , she seems to say, _Don’t insult us both_.

“I’m speaking from personal experience,” she says. “One day, I woke up and thought: sod it, I’m not waiting around for him anymore. And I moved on. I’m seeing other people now.”

Q looks down to the keyboard, moving it minutely and then sliding it back to its previous location. Of course, he’d known about Moneypenny and Bond’s fling, just as he’s known about all of Bond’s dalliances. But it’s news to him that she ever lost sleep over the agent. “He’s such a wanker,” Q mumbles.

Her hand is cool atop his. “Yes, but you mustn’t let Bond destroy your life. You’ve sacrificed too much for him already.”

A timid glance to her face, which is just as radiant and compassionate as he feared. “I feel so pathetic.”

“No,” she insists, grip tightening on his hand, “Your attention will be appreciated elsewhere.”

“Why does he get to do whatever he likes?” he mumbles bitterly, unable to stop his brain from conjuring an image of a bathing suit-clad Bond reclined on a sunny beach. “With her…” he adds, feeling petty and small for hating Madeleine. After all, it’s not her fault his heart is broken, but still Q feels wildly jealous.

He self-consciously glances towards the door through which the outside corridor is visible. No one is walking past the room. All of this is terribly unprofessional, gossiping while they’re at work, but Q literally has no one else with whom he can talk about Bond. If anyone understands wasting time on the agent, it’s Moneypenny.

“Oh, darling, do you really think that will last?” she teases, her hand withdrawing.

Q looks up as she begins to laugh. “What do you mean?”

By the time he asks the question, her chuckle has blossomed into a full-blown cackle. She slides off his desk and saunters towards the sliding glass doors. “He’ll be back within the month. Alone.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Q is desperately attempting to balance a tray of two coffees (breakfast) and a sack containing a raspberry scone (lunch, possibly dinner) as he walks through the doors and passes a cluster of Q branch minions, who each rattle off a series of requests. Most of it is white noise, though a short blond lad breaks through the static: “Sir, the engineers are waiting on your approval of the modified Aston Martin, since we were…unable to clear the last one.” Code for: _Since Bond nicked the last one_.

“Uh, yes. Very good. Tell them I’ll be at the testing station shortly,” he says on the way to his desk, sacred space that the underlings know not to sully with their presence. Save for one, apparently. There’s a man standing by his workstation, curiously examining the screen of his laptop. “Can I help you?” Q spits, setting down the cups and sack on the desk.

He doesn’t recognize 009 until the man turns to face him. “We were scheduled to meet at 0800 hours,” he greets, pointedly, because Q is five minutes late to work and assumed no one would notice or dare to censure him.

“I missed my train,” Q mumbles, waiting for the agent to step to the side so he can commandeer the computer. He deliberately doesn’t apologize.

009 waits quietly, even though Q isn’t doing anything of grave importance—simply signing into the MI6 mainframe and checking his inbox, which can wait. He’s trying to remember his last interaction with 009: how the man looked, what was said, how he reacted to the disappointing news that 007 had, once again, stolen his field items. He can recall only the vaguest of descriptions: tall, broad in the shoulders (which describes 99 percent of all field agents), Caucasian, dark blond hair, blue eyes, an odd, clipped way of speaking. _Odd_. That’s the word that continues to fly about inside his head, maybe because Moneypenny was the one to release it there. He’s unable to expand the characterization because he’d been too preoccupied with Bond at the time.

There’s a message from M in his inbox: _Good morning, Q. 009 should be at your work station by now (he’s very punctual). Please print two copies of the attached cryptology quiz. You and 009 are to solve the quizzes on your own, one question each day, until the quiz is complete. Every morning, you will meet to discuss your findings._

Q downloads the attachment and recognizes it immediately as the GCHQ Christmas quiz, a series of questions designed as fun brainteasers for the cryptologists. Fun, in the loosest possible terms, solvable to perhaps only five percent of the British population, enjoyable to less than that. Q solved his first Christmas quiz when he was twelve.

“You’ve got to be joking,” he mumbles, angrily jabbing command and “P” on his keyboard, sending the first question to print.

009 gazes over his shoulder, “Why don’t we simply solve the entire quiz in one day? That’s more efficient.”

Q sighs, deleting M’s email. He can’t think of a reason to lie. “The exercise is meant to help you socialize. It’s not about getting the answers correct. I’ll be judging you based on our interactions.”

“Oh…” the man replies, gaze shifting from the screen to Q’s face. He dimly registers that 009 looks very young. He’d missed that before. Some would probably describe him as handsome. “Because I’m difficult.”

Q almost smirks until he realizes 009 is being perfectly serious. “Uh, yes.”

He nods, unoffended, simply processing the information. “I’ve read your file too. Very impressive.” 009 looks at him, perhaps waiting for Q to react with gratitude, but he simply stares back at the man. Of course he’s impressive. He’s the head of Q branch. The agent apparently interprets his silence as a request for more information. “Top of your class at the University of Oxford at age fifteen, youngest head of Q branch in the history of MI6—”

“I know what my file says,” Q sighs, slipping away a few paces to fetch the quizzes from the nearby laser printer.

He returns to the work station and hands one copy to 009 as he says, “You’ve also had more red flags than any head of Q branch, mostly for the Silva debacle and 007’s indiscretions—I hope he’s enjoying the car, by the way—”

“I’d be very mindful of who you’re talking to,” Q spits, annoyed with the agent, but also himself for allowing his hackles to be raised so soon, so easily. It was the mention of Bond. He doesn’t want to think about the agent right now.

009’s mouth closes and he nods. “I apologize. I spoke out of turn.” He sounds like a man who is reciting a script the psychiatrist had him memorize so he would have something to say whenever he made a conversation terribly awkward.

“Just…do the bloody quiz and report back tomorrow,” Q mumbles, feeling exhausted and miserable all at once. It’s barely a quarter past eight o’clock and he already wants to go home and burrow under the blankets of his bed.

009 lingers, and Q is beginning to wonder if he’ll have to give a direct order for the man to leave, when suddenly he says, “Right. See you tomorrow,” and is gone.

 

* * *

 

There are too many people crowded on the platform for him to make the first train, so he waits for the second and barely makes it on that one, the majority of his commute spent with his nose practically mashed against the glass window of the door. He increases the volume on his phone (Chopin blaring into his ears) and closes his eyes, breathing and meditating so he can complete the journey without having an embarrassing panic attack in public. The anxiety inspired by the crush of rush hour reminds him of flying to Austria, and how he’d managed his fear by repeating to himself that he was making the journey to help Bond.

He trudges off the train and up the stairs into a mist of rain. Coat clutched miserably to his throat, he hurries up the street and jogs up the steps of his building, opening the front door and scaling a single flight up. He opens the second door into his flat and Heisenberg greets him first, as per usual. The little tabby pitifully whines at his feet as he bends down to scratch behind her ears in greeting. “Hello, I know,” he sighs, locking the door and leaning down to unlace his shoes.

All the commotion summons Babbage, the tuxedo cat lumbering over from his spot by the parlor window to not-too-subtly rub himself along Q’s legs. “I know, I know,” he soothes, petting him too. He drops his messenger bag by the door and hangs up the damp jacket on a hook so it will dry. “Let’s get dinner,” he sings, hurrying to the kitchen to pop open a can and crouch by their feeding dishes to dole half to Heisenberg and the other half to Babbage. The meowing ceases as soon as he does so, giving way to silent carnage as the cats bury their faces in the dishes.

Q leans against the counter, watching them eat, and quietly reflecting on his day. “Still no word from James,” he says to the cats, which is only slightly less depressing than if he was talking to himself. “Probably off shagging Madeleine,” he adds, sighing, with a glance to the refrigerator. He should make himself some dinner, but he’s so tired. All he wants to do is curl up in bed and go to sleep. The field test of the new Aston Martins didn’t go well. There’s something wrong with the engine, and one of the engineers commented it would be _much easier_ to know what the problem is if Q hadn’t allowed 007 to abscond with the original model. He hadn’t used those words, naturally. At the time, the engineer used euphemisms and delicately danced around the subject, but everyone knew what he meant. Another humiliation. “Daddy is an idiot,” he sadly informs the cats.

He can’t remember the last person he kissed. Squinting into the distance, Q thinks it might have been some bloke at a New Year’s Ever party _ages ago_ during the in-between years post-graduation and pre-MI6. _And you know the last time you had sex_ , his brain scoffs. _Considering you’ve only done it twice_. Twice, with the same person. His only boyfriend: Peter. If he can’t recall the last kiss, he certainly can’t remember the last time he has sex with Peter because it was years ago. One might imagine, having only completed the act twice, that memories of both times would be seared into his memory in precious detail, but sadly this is not the case. He had to drink copious amounts of alcohol in order to relax enough to have sex, hence his muddled memories.

He stares across the kitchen island into the parlor. His flat is in a desirable area of London, located in a former warehouse that has been sectioned off into stylish units for working singles; the decor best described as _eccentric chic_ , but really he simply enjoys shopping at flea markets. He likes furniture with a soul. Located in the center of his coffee table is a sad Charlie Brown-style Christmas tree with tiny ornaments designed to scale for the evergreen dwarf. Originally, he thought the tree would be a funny tongue-in-cheek commentary on the modern life of a single man, but now it’s just sad. There are two wrapped gifts at the base, one for each cat, but both containing the same thing: catnip-filled toys.

“And now I’m babysitting 009,” he adds. Briefly, Babbage looks up at him, licks his mouths, and dives back into the small pile of food. Q nods slowly. That’s about the amount of interest he would expect an independent party to have in his life. “I’m off to bed,” he sighs, exiting the kitchen.

It’s not until he’s dressed in Gingham pajamas and under the covers that he remembers the quiz. “Bugger, bugger, bugger,” he grumbles, storming back to the front door to wrestle the sheets of paper from his bag and transport them back to the bedroom where the cats are already curled at the foot of the bed. Q turns on the bedside lamp, puts on his glasses, and lays on his back, considering the first question.

> 1\. While clearing up after a Christmas party, the paper inserts from some crackers were found on one of the tables. They were arranged in order and the inscription reads:
> 
>  
> 
> FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE;
> 
> HABIT THAT HAS BECOME INSTINCTIVE;
> 
> FEET TURNED OUTWARDS WITH HEELS TOUCHING;
> 
> THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS ON WHICH A METHOD IS BASED;
> 
> AN ALTERNATIVE, ESPECIALLY AN AGENDA WHICH IS CONSENSUS-BASED;
> 
> PEOPLE OR THINGS GROUPED TOGETHER AS THE BEST;
> 
> A CHANGE OF OPINION AFTER RECONSIDERING SOMETHING;
> 
> COVERING DAMAGE SUFFERED BY A PERSON OTHER THAN THE INSURED;
> 
> THE HEALING OF A WOUND BY NATURAL CONTACT OF THE PARTS INVOLVED;
> 
> THE HIGHEST-RANKING NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER IN A UNIT;
> 
> AN ALTERNATIVE COURSE OF ACTION IN CASE ANOTHER ONE FAILS;
> 
> A GROUP WITHIN A COUNTRY AT WAR WHO ARE WORKING FOR ITS ENEMIES;
> 
> MAIL FOR UNSEALED PRINTED MATERIAL;
> 
> AN OPENING ATTACK WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
> 
>  
> 
> What is the message?

 

Q spins a pen between his fingers and hums as he considers the first line. He then draws a vertical line between the text and the blank half of the page’s eastern hemisphere. Beside the first line he writes, “first hand.” A habit that becomes instinctive is also known as, “second nature,” and “first position” is another name for when ballerinas turn out their feet, right down the list until his second column is full:

> FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE — **first hand**
> 
> HABIT THAT HAS BECOME INSTINCTIVE — **second nature**
> 
> FEET TURNED OUTWARDS WITH HEELS TOUCHING — **first position**
> 
> THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS ON WHICH A METHOD IS BASED — **first principles**
> 
> AN ALTERNATIVE, ESPECIALLY AN AGENDA WHICH IS CONSENSUS-BASED — **third way**
> 
> PEOPLE OR THINGS GROUPED TOGETHER AS THE BEST — **first class**
> 
> A CHANGE OF OPINION AFTER RECONSIDERING SOMETHING — **second thought**
> 
> COVERING DAMAGE SUFFERED BY A PERSON OTHER THAN THE INSURED — **third party**
> 
> THE HEALING OF A WOUND BY NATURAL CONTACT OF THE PARTS INVOLVED — **first intention**
> 
> THE HIGHEST-RANKING NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER IN A UNIT — **first sergeant**
> 
> AN ALTERNATIVE COURSE OF ACTION IN CASE ANOTHER ONE FAILS — **last resort**
> 
> A GROUP WITHIN A COUNTRY AT WAR WHO ARE WORKING FOR ITS ENEMIES — **fifth column**
> 
> MAIL FOR UNSEALED PRINTED MATERIAL — **third class**
> 
> AN OPENING ATTACK WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS — **first strike**
> 
>  

That’s the easy part, but now he has to excavate a message from the latter column. It will be a combination of a letter taken from each of the second words, he decides, and so Q begins organizing letters into a variety of messages. Then he glances back to the original question and smiles. “Ah,” he says and Heisenberg’s ears perk up.

> first **h** and
> 
> second n **a** ture
> 
> first **p** osition
> 
> first **p** rinciples
> 
> third wa **y**
> 
> first **c** lass
> 
> second t **h** ought
> 
> thirty pa **r** ty
> 
> first **i** ntention
> 
> first **s** ergeant
> 
> last resor **t**
> 
> fifth colu **m** n
> 
> third cl **a** ss
> 
> first **s** trike

_Happy Christmas_ , he writes at the bottom of the page and glances to the bedside clock. Ten minutes. He tells himself he would have been faster if he was properly caffeinated. “Happy Christmas and good night,” he says, placing the papers on the table and switching off the lights, each cat a warm bundle pressing into his feet.

 

* * *

 

For some reason, he feels lighter the next day traveling to MI6. The train pulls up just as he descends into the tube station; there’s an open seat waiting for him on the train; every cross light yields to him; the underlings part when he walks into the control room, like the sea at the beckoning of Moses, and he glides over to his work station, humming a bit of Chopin’s ninth Nocturne beneath his breath. His good mood lasts approximately as long as it takes him to start up the SmartBlood program. Bond is off the grid, and waiting in his inbox is an ominous message from Tanner, subject: ???, and in the body: _Bond?_

According to the tracker, 007 is five hours south-east (and a quick hop over the Aegean Sea) on the island of Mykonos. Another flash: Bond, shirtless, the ropes of his back muscles rolling as he braces atop Madeleine; waves of hair a golden halo around her face, lips spread in an enraptured cry.

“Happy Christmas,” 009 declares directly beside him and Q knocks over his cup of coffee.

“ _Bloody_ hell,” he growls, yanking paper napkins from the sack containing his scone and immediately mopping up the coffee pooling across the surface, but not (thankfully) anywhere near his computer. 009 watches him, spine rigid, maybe a little proud. He’s completely oblivious to the magnitude of Q’s annoyance. He keeps waiting for the man to help him, but he doesn’t move. “Are you just going to stand there or help me?” he finally asks.

“Oh, of course,” 009 replies, plucking a few of the napkins out of the bag and crouching to dab up where the liquid has run off the edge of the desk and dripped onto the floor.

Q watches him with a furrowed brow. “So you solved it.”

009 looks up, the corner of his mouth curling. “In seven minutes. How long did it take you?”

“Six,” Q lies, face hot in annoyance. _Seven Minutes._ Tanner wasn’t joking about the agent’s cryptology skills.

“Well done,” 009 remarks, and when Q glances at him, the agent seems sincere. He has no idea Q’s just lied to him. He’ll have to add that to his report. A Double O should always know when someone is lying to him.

They toss away the wet paper napkins in a nearby bin. “I’ll get you the second question,” he mumbles, swiping away the SmartBlood window as if shooing away a fly. He opens the latest email from M, downloads the attachment, and sends the question to the printer.

“We’re meant to discuss and analyze how we arrived at our answers,” 009 points out, reciting back to him M’s email. He scrolls up and sees, indeed, that is what their superior has instructed.

“Right…” Q sighs. “Uh, well, obviously I was looking for patterns, so once I saw the initial answer was _first hand_ , I assumed the rest of the answers would be a variation of that.”

009 nods. “A number and then a secondary word. I skipped that step. Once I saw it was a Christmas Party, and fourteen lines, I deduced the message would be _Happy Christmas_.” Q’s face warms. It’s obvious that wasting time on the intermediate step would burn a significant amount of time, and Q would have been unable to complete the puzzle faster than 009, but the agent doesn’t point out this reality. “I didn’t think they would have shared that variable unless it was important to the answer—”

“Yes, very good,” Q mumbles, walking to the printer. He fetches the second question and hands it to 009.

Looking up, he notices the man staring at his screen where the SmartBlood window is once again visible. He must have maximized it without realizing—reflexively, like he can’t stop his brain from searching for Bond. “It’s not your fault, you know—the majority of the marks on your record. I saw you were trying to help 007.” Q gapes at him. To say 009 is overstepping boundaries is to vastly understate the gravity of the situation. The only thing stopping Q from unleashing a stream of vitriol is the fact that none of his subordinates are within earshot. Still, he opens his mouth to suggest the agent mind his own business, but before he can the man adds: “He takes you for granted.”

Clearly, the agent means in the professional sense, but the words wound him deeply because it’s true. Q has nearly killed himself to help Bond, and the man ceases thinking about him the moment Q is no longer in his field of vision. “Occupational hazard,” Q smirks, hoping his tone sounds light. There’s ringing in his ears. He feels light-headed and needs to sit down.

009 has unnerving eyes: focused and steady, like the eyes of a predatory bird. “I hope he appreciates it.” A worrisome moment follows where Q can’t breathe, while wondering what in the world he should say. The agent interprets this as meaning he should say more: “All my apparatuses: the guns, the car…”

“Oh…” Q sucks in a breath, laughing at his own stupidity. _Of course_. _He hopes Bond appreciates the nicked goods_. “Uh, I’m sure he does.” As soon as Q laughs, a smile breaks across the agent’s face. The expression makes him look younger and relaxed—almost normal. He realizes he’s staring. “Okay, very good. I’ll, um, report to M that we met and both solved the first question.” 009 nods, still gazing at him, a warmth in his eyes that Q finds unnerving. It dawns on him that he has to be the one to tell the agent to leave. “You should report back to the Double O facility.”

“Right,” 009 says. Q notices he’s spent the entire interaction with his hands neatly clasped behind his back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His stride through Q branch is confident, if not slightly robotic, as if he’s making a conscious effort to mimic the behavior of his peers. It then occurs to Q that he’s staring and has now watched the man’s entire journey from desk to door, right up until he disappears down the hallway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get complicated

007 was scheduled to be stationed for several months in Athens, which was to be his base to monitor the privatization process. Greece’s government has recently agreed to reform its energy sector and facilitate state sell-offs to meet conditions for its €1bn in loans, but the British government wants someone on the ground to surveil any potential dissidents. GCHQ can only do so much snooping in people’s browsers and tapping their phones, but it is up to Bond to make connections and take the temperature of local anarchists. What everyone fears is another flare-up of 2011, the major anti-austerity protests that nearly destroyed the country and dragged under the entire European Union with it.

Q barely maintains a straight face when M informs him of the goals. These days, Bond looks more like the protesters’ grandfather, and he wants to say if the goal is infiltration, they would do better to send someone who looks like him, a fresh-out-of-university type, instead of a suit-and-tied Double O. However, he keeps the thought to himself because M is just cross enough at him these days to take his suggestion, stuff him onto a plane headed to Athens, and fill his position at Q branch while he’s away.

For quite some time, it’s been obvious that 007 has strayed from the given objective, frequently vanishing for days at a time to unscheduled destinations on remote beaches. _At least he hasn’t drifted from the continent_ , Q thinks, which actually is quite a large mercy. Bond is at least focused enough to stay within a quick flight of Athens, so he can return to base and resume monitoring whenever he’s finished shagging Madeleine. The thought pumps bile up his throat, and a crazed part of him is considering sending an email to M that says the whole mission is hopeless and to bring 007 home immediately when a message from Bond suddenly appears on his work screen.

It’s a brief, one line correspondence, as is Bond’s custom (he hates technology, so the fact that he wrote at all means he is unable to call): _Parliament 21/12/16._

Q sucks in a deep breath and sighs on the exhale, “Bugger.” A protest is scheduled days from now in the home of the major uprising. He sees M and Tanner are CC’d to the message, so they will have seen it by now. M will be able to point to this bit of news as proof that Bond’s placement in the field is fruitful, and he should remain there for the foreseeable future. With Madeleine. In their swimsuits. On a bloody gorgeous beach.

He violently jabs the correct sequence of keys to delete the email. It was raining in London on his way to work this morning and Q nearly ruined his shoe when he inadvertently stepped into a muddy puddle. He doubts James Bond has to worry about such trivialities. Bond doesn’t have to deal with rush hour or changing litter boxes. He’s too busy living a life of intrigue as a dashing international spy. Q clicks on the trash can icon on his desktop and empties that as well. He deletes Bond twice and feels mildly better.

“Good morning.”

When Q looks to his left, 009 is standing there, hands neatly folded behind his back, brows pleasantly raised, lips curled in an eager-but-not-too-eager smile. No teeth. He looks alert and ready to please. _He’s hoping for a good report from you_. Q mentally swats away the thought. No need to sabotage 009 simply because he’s angry with Bond.

“Oh…” Q sighs, reaching for his messenger bag, having temporarily forgotten about the second quiz question that he’d completed last night while eating takeaway over the sink as the cats mauled their canned food down below. Not his proudest moment, but he’d been too exhausted to properly plate the meal and sit on his couch, which is his normal custom. “Right,” he sighs, adjusting his glasses and squinting at the pages. The numbers are a bit fuzzy, but that’s probably just the result of fatigue. He didn’t sleep well last night, plagued by bizarre dreams about chasing Bond across Athens’ rooftops. In the dream, he’d thought he was helping the agent, but about halfway through realized the agent was _running from him_.

“Are you all right?”

009’s brows are furrowed. He looks genuinely concerned. “Your reactions are delayed today and you look pale.” Q remembers the part of 009’s file about _difficulty understanding emotions_. He knows part of the agent’s suggested training involves carefully monitoring individuals’ patterns of facial expressions and mannerisms to detect when they’re in distress. Right on cue, 009 asks: “Are you in distress?”

Which is such an odd way to ask if he’s okay that Q almost smiles. “I’m fine,” he lies, then adds, “I didn’t sleep well,” because he doesn’t want to confuse the agent. 009 has done well by noticing he’s in a sour mood, and he’ll note that in his write-up for today.

“I drink a glass of warm milk before bed,” 009 says.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Q mumbles, spreading the sheets out before him. “Right,” he says once more, resuming looking at the quiz’s second question.

Unlike the first question, this was a numbers game, much to Q’s great relief. He was able to solve it extremely quickly, no more than a handful of minutes, but he doesn’t want to ask 009 how long it took him to solve:

> What’s the next 5-digit group?
> 
> 11213 12415 12361 71248 13912  
>  51011 11234 61211 31271 41351  
>  51248 16117 12369 18119 ?????

“You looked for a pattern first,” 009 prompts, eyes shining as if he’s said something very clever, remembering Q’s strategy for the first question.

He smiles slightly, the cheeky part of him wanting to ask _what other way is there?_ Though, he’s a little afraid to know how 009 solved it, lest the answer be some kind of numerical clairvoyance. He’s just opened his mouth to explain that, yes, he located the pattern first, when the main doors _whoosh_ open and a wild-eyed subordinate rushes into the room, “Sir!” he cries, about a dozen heads snapping up in his direction. “There’s, uh, been a problem with the Aston Martin, with, uh, one of the features…” Q stares at him and he holds up in his hands in defeated surrender, “There was a small fire, sir.” Q immediately walks away from the station, 009 and the quiz forgotten, as the frightened drone adds, “It’s been contained—I mean, put out, sir, but I thought you should know.”

Q mutters beneath his breath, storming from mission control. If 007 hadn’t stolen the original model, this never would have happened. Everything can be traced back to Q’s own pathetic weakness. In the absence of his feeble fawning, 007 does not nick the car, the engineers are able to replicate all the special features, and MI6’s new facilities are not nearly burned down in the first month. As he hurries down the corridor, a distant beeping fills his ears. A smoke alarm. He’s going to have to report back to M about this. More red flags in his file.

He’s so busy silently cursing Bond’s name that he entirely forgets about 009 and the quiz on his desk.

 

* * *

 

The cats are a bit wary of him and he doesn’t know why until remembering that he’s spent the better part of his day contained in a smokey vault. “Sorry,” he sighs, crouching down to pet Heisenberg and Babbage as they eat, “Daddy will shower.” He strips out of his clothes and stands under the hot spray for a while, scrubbing at his skin with soap and a loofa, and then thoroughly washing his hair. Afterwards, he wraps his waist in a towel and sits on the edge of his bed to check his email.

In the inbox: M’s report of the fire inside the new facilities as co-signed by Q and Tanner, various notes from the Aston Martin engineers, a breathless report from another engineer about tweaks to the field agents’ watches that he’s extremely excited to share with Q, and about a hundred other minor updates and requests from subordinates that will have to wait until tomorrow because Q is so tired that his eyes are crossing.

Suddenly, his cell phone vibrates on the bedside table and he dives for the device, reflexively imagining that it must be Bond calling. Who else would be stupid enough to ring him on his personal cell phone? The idea of it being anyone else is unthinkable. Outside of work, Q doesn’t have any colleagues. Sadly, other than Moneypenny and Bond, he’s unsure if he can make the claim he has other friends. “Where are you?” he spits, not bothering to look at the screen.

“Q?”

Brow furrowed, he pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at the screen. Unknown number. “Who is this?” he asks, annoyed. He’s going to sack whoever is calling—probably some overeager engineer who can’t sleep thinking about the Aston Martin.

“009.”

Q rolls his eyes and cradles the phone to his skull, eyes pinched shut. _Bugger, bugger, bugger_. “Why are you calling me at home?” he asks, “ _On my cell phone_ ,” he adds, stressing the last part, which is code for: _Have you lost your mind_? They’re not on a secure connection, and true, only their own people are likely listening in, but the agent is still breaching all manner of protocols.

“I’m sorry. We didn’t finish talking about the quiz, and my mission statement says I’m required to fulfill daily check-ins with you…” He continues talking, repeating M’s exact orders, and Q closes his eyes again as he listens. It’s true. He’s correct. However, a normal person would have simply made up the time tomorrow, when they could have recapped questions two and three at the same time (009 is attached to all of M’s emails; printing out the quizzes has simply been a formality), but 009 has placed an undue amount of importance on the _daily_ directive. In his mind, if they skip a day, it means 009 has failed, and that is not acceptable.

“You’re right,” Q says, cutting off the deluge, “Let me fetch the papers.” He’d hastily re-stuffed them into his bag when he’d returned to mission control, after the long process of airing out the testing station and post-mortem autopsy of the vehicle to determine what went wrong. He cradles the phone to his ear as he walks through the flat to the front door where his bag is located. On the way, he nearly steps on Heisenberg’s tail and she emits a soft warning mewl.

“Is that a cat?” 009 asks.

Q locates the papers jammed into the bottom of his bag and he has to smooth them out against his bare chest. “Uh, yeah. I have two,” he reports idly, not pausing to think about the fact that no other agent besides Bond is aware of that fact.

“What are their names?”

“Um, Heisenberg and Babbage.”

He’s unsure, but the noise on the other end may be amused chuckling. “After the pioneer of quantum mechanics and the grandfather of the programmable computer.”

“Indeed,” Q sighs, squinting, trying to make out what he’s written on the page.

“Proper science names.”

He smiles thinly, “It seemed appropriate.” His head is pounding. He needs to drink a glass of water or go to sleep. Q collapses back onto the bed and fetches his glasses from the bedside table so he can read the text. “Uh, right. So obviously these are factors of one. The pattern is the integers that divide evenly into each integer starting with one, and the numbers to the right repeat the numbers above,” he says, eyeing his notes:

 

 

 

 

> 1
> 
> 1 2
> 
> 1 3
> 
> 1 2 4
> 
> 1 5
> 
> 1 2 3 6
> 
> 1 7
> 
> 1 2 4 8
> 
> 1 3 9
> 
> 1 2 5 10
> 
> 1 11
> 
> 1 2 3 4 6 12
> 
> 1 13
> 
> 1 2 7 14
> 
> 1 3 5 15
> 
> 1 2 4 8 16
> 
> 1 17
> 
> 1 2 3 6 9 18
> 
> 1 19
> 
> **1 2 4 5 1** 0

 

“The answer is 1 2 4 5.”

009 hums affirmatively. “That was my process too.”

Q experiences a worrying warmth in his chest upon learning the agent hasn’t discovered a faster, cleverer way to solve the puzzle. He clears his throat and remarks,“Okay, then,” sincerely hoping he won’t have to be the one to terminate the conversation again. But of course he’ll have to be.

“Do you live alone?”

He sighs and glances at the beside clock: 23:30. Almost midnight. He needs to get some rest, but is also aware that social conditioning is a large part of 009’s objective. Shouldn’t he be encouraging the fact that he’s trying to make smalltalk?

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

A disconcerting realization: Q is also rubbish at small talk. He scoots higher on the bed and rests his spine against the headboard. “No roommates?”

“No.”

“No girlfriend?”

A pause. “No,” 009 replies. Q’s brow furrows and he swallows. _Interesting._ Not the fact that he’s single. Most agents are (it’s just neater that way), but the hesitation interests him. “You?”

“Just the cats,” he says, lips curling, and this time he’s sure the agent chuckles.

“I like cats.”

Q hums, glancing down at the little curled bundles at the foot of his bed. Both the felines are enjoying a post-dinner snooze. “It just made sense. They’re independent creatures. They have each other for company, so they don’t miss me when I’m gone all day…”

“I’m sure they miss you.”

He gazes across his bedroom, unsure of what to say next. 009’s words strike him as intimate, but that’s simply his imagination. According to the agent’s file, he speaks in only the most literal terms. 009 is attempting to empathize with his cats (perhaps a psychiatrist-dictated exercise), offering an opinion that animals are capable of missing their human caretakers. He is not disguising a sentiment in flirtatious banter by remarking that Q is the type of man one would miss when he is not around.

 _Christ, I’m lonely_ , he miserably opines to himself.

“What about you? Pets?”

“No, only me.”

The words inexplicably make him tremendously sad, and to Q’s abject horror, hot tears well in his eyes. He’s just tired. He needs to sleep. “I should get some rest,” he says.

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

 

* * *

 

He’s better rested the next day (no more dreams about chasing Bond across rooftops) and arrives to MI6 to good news: the engineers have fixed the problems with the Aston Martin and it’s survived three tests without a single fire. Encouraging news. He sips his latte and flips through the emails marked “urgent” (most of the time, the messages don’t warrant the label, and today is no exception). He’s just finished a response that reads: “Your holiday scheduling requests do not constitute an _urgent_ matter,” to one of the engineers when 009 appears at his elbow.

“Ah…” Q says, looking over the tops of his spectacles, “I have good news. Your car—your _new_ car, that is to say—will be ready shortly.”

“Brilliant,” 009 replies, peering at the screen, “Did you get the answer?”

Q shoots him an amused look. As if that was ever in doubt. He finished the puzzle on the morning train ride and pulls out the sheet from his bag.  

 

 

> Place the following in the order of their initial opening. An associated temporal, titular occasion has by now been achieved for two people (including, appropriately and most recently, by the one we heard about it from); for two it wasn’t and can never be so. Another temporal, educational event (in 1947?) alluded to is, in today’s terms, inaccurately described. FTBO, IFAH, IGBA, IRTN, IWTY, LRMM, NTDT, PYIA, WIGO, WMAF, WSPL, WWTA, WWYT

“They’re abbreviations of the opening words to the thirteen tracks of the Beatles’ _Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band_. FTBO is _For the Benefit Of…,_ IFAH is _I’m Fixing a Hole,_ IGBA is _It’s Getting Better All_ …et cetera, et cetera. But in order, it looks like this,” he says, sliding his sheet of paper over to 009. The man cranes his neck to read it. Q takes a moment to look at his profile: the sharp angle of his nose, the carefully tamed waves of his hair.

The agent nods and produces his sheet of paper, placing it beside Q’s. The lists are identical: 

 

 

 

> IWTY
> 
> WWYT
> 
> PYIA
> 
> IGBA
> 
> IFAH
> 
> WMAF
> 
> FTBO
> 
> WWTA
> 
> WIGO
> 
> LRMM
> 
> NTDT
> 
> WSPL
> 
> IRTN

 

Q clears his throat. “ _For two it wasn’t and can never be_ is clearly a reference to John Lennon and George Harrison, both dead, and the _temporal education event in 1947_ refers to the opening lines of _Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band_ ,” he says, glancing at 009 who is looking at him in the odd, amused way, “You know,” he says, singing, “It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.”

009 smiles slowly and Q laughs self-consciously.

“I don’t know, actually. I had to listen to the song online.”

Q tosses him a mock scolding look. “And you call yourself an Englishman.”

009 opens his mouth to reply, but the air rushing through opening doors steals Q’s attention. It’s Dhailwal, MI6’s head engineer. “Is it ready?” Q asks hopefully. Lately, he’s felt an encroaching sense of guilt that he gave away 009’s car to Bond.

“She’s a beauty,” the engineer replies, hands stuffed into the pockets of his spotless lab coat. No oil stains or burn marks. Good signs.

Q smiles and looks at 009. “Let’s go see her.”

He expected the agent to be thrilled, but notices a flash of disappointment in his eyes when he responds: “After you.”

 

* * *

 

He grabbed a sandwich from a shop on his way home and is eating it at the kitchen counter when someone knocks on his flat door. Brow furrowed, he glances to the cats who are staring up at him, as if he’s waiting for them to tell him who the visitor could be. “Who is it?” he calls, once he’s standing by the door. He peers through the peephole and sees a distorted image of 009’s face.

“009,” he answers.

 _Bloody hell_. Q yanks open the door and pulls him inside by the elbow of his peacoat. “Have you lost your mind?” he growls, casting a glance down the hallway. There’s no one around. He shuts the door and locks it. “How do you know where I live?”

009 looks worried, like it only just occurred to him that this might be a bad idea. “Your home address is in your classified file,” and when Q stares daggers at him, adds, “You looked at my information too, didn’t you? It’s the first thing I did.”

Begrudgingly, Q nods. Fair is fair, he supposes, and one snoop deserves another in turn. “But why are you here?” he asks, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Oh, I…” he reaches into his pocket and produces a small, wrapped gift, “For the cats,” he explains.

Q stares at the present for a long, hard moment. “You bought my cats a Christmas gift,” he repeats, trying to process this latest information.

“Yes,” 009 confirms, eyes bright as he looks around Q’s flat—the narrow sliver that is visible from his spot by the front door. “Do you have a tree?”

Slowly, he accepts the gift from the man and sighs, “Take off your shoes,” he instructs, padding into the parlor on bare feet. Thankfully, he’s still in his work attire and had not yet changed into his pajamas for 009’s unexpected visit. He places the green-and-red-striped package under the tree and watches 009 cross into the kitchen and dip down so that only the top of his head is visible over the island’s counter.

By the time he walks over to the kitchen, the agent is petting Heisenberg and Babbage on their heads as they eat. “They’re beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Q quietly responds, trying to think of how to handle this situation. He shouldn’t have allowed a Double O into his flat in the first place, but ever since he began breaking rules for Bond, it’s been difficult to know where to re-draw the line.

The agent has also shed is jacket and is clad in slacks and a blue sweater. He’s never seen the man dressed in anything other than an impeccably tailored suit, and the effect is disarming. 009 looks very young, crouched in Q’s kitchen and whispering that his cats are lovely.

“Did you want to work more on the social aspect of your training?” Q asks, desperately grasping at straws. He knows 009’s visit can’t purely be to check in on his cats.

He scratches under Babbage’s chin, the cat’s eyes shut in rapture, and looks up at Q. “We barely spoke today.”

 _Oh_. Q’s face warms. Now he really should ask the agent to leave, but the man’s gaze is genuine and earnest when he looks up at Q, and he feels too guilty to ask him to go. If he was being honest with himself, he would also acknowledge he doesn’t want to ask the man to leave. It’s been ages since he had any company—anyone to talk to besides the cats. “009…” he begins.

“You may call me Alex,” he says, standing.

Q hesitates. “Your file says Alistair…”

The corner of his eye twitches. “I prefer Alex,” he quietly insists.

He exhales, casting a helpless look to the cats. The enormity of this moment rests heavily on his shoulders. Q knows this is wrong—that, given the imbalance in their power dynamic, it is his responsibility to tell the agent to depart. In numerous sections of 009 file, psychiatrists have written that he misreads social cues and unknowingly oversteps boundaries. It’s up to Q to remind him of his place.

 _But has he overstepped a boundary?_ Perhaps Q has been inviting him to do so.

“Alex…” he begins, stopping when the man smiles, misinterpreting the beginning of his thought. “I think you should leave.”

The pleasant expression vanishes, replaced by bewilderment. “Why? You’re lonely…”

Q’s face burns. “I’m not…” he says, stepping back. He should walk to the door, unlock it, and insist 009 leave.

“Yes, you are. I am too. We’re both brilliant; we got the same answers to the puzzles; we enjoy speaking to each other. Is the problem that you’re my quartermaster? You feel you’re taking advantage? You’re not. I pursued you. I found your address and came here because I wanted to see you.”

The warmth migrates to the rest of his body. By now, he’s sure his cheeks are flushed. “Nothing can happen between us,” he says, trying to sound as firm and authoritative as possible.

Alex stares at him silently, eyes wide and shining, flitting slightly as if making calculations. He’s assessing Q, reading him, and the feeling is unnerving. Suddenly, he nods. “You’re in love with 007.”

Q may stop breathing for a moment. “I beg your pardon?” He forces the words out, hiding his hands behind the island because his fingers are quivering. He’s going to begin hyper-ventilating soon. It always happens during the panic attacks. “This has nothing to do with him. I am your superior. It would be wildly inappropriate—”

“What about all the times you’ve broken the rules for him? Were those times appropriate?”

“Get out!” The boom of his voice makes Alex and the cats jump. Heisenberg darts down the hallway into Q’s room. He’s breathing hard. He needs to sit down. The warmth has been flushed out by an icy tingling.

“I’m sorry,” the agent apologizes at once, gaze fearful, realizing the magnitude of his mistake.

“009, I want you leave my home right this moment,” he mutters flatly, forcing his feet to move towards the door. He unlocks and pulls it open, gaze diverted to the floor, refusing to look at the man. He’s merely a shadow and a warm presence passing by. Q angrily shoves the peacoat in his general direction, the fabric lifting from his grip in an invisible cloud of sandalwood.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats before Q shuts the door.

 

* * *

 

The following morning, Q goes straight to M’s office, knowing that it’s 0800 hours and the agent will be standing by his desk, waiting to apologize again. He doesn’t want to hear it. For too long, he’s ignored the warning signs that 009 has developed an unhealthy fixation on him. He walks past M’s receptionist and opens the door to his office, ignoring the woman’s protests. “May I have a word?” he asks. M and Tanner are huddled around an open file on the director’s desk and Dhailwal is seated in the firing squad chair, except he looks unfazed, which means the meeting is probably to praise his work on the Aston Martin.

M flashes the engineer an apologetic smile. “Would you please excuse us? You know how Q branch emergencies are…”

He’s fairly sure that’s a subtle dig at him, but he doesn’t care. As soon as the door clicks shut behind Dhailwal, Q commandeers his seat and announces, “I wish to remove myself as 009’s handler.”

M and Tanner exchange a look. “Why?” Tanner asks.

“He’s developed an unhealthy fixation on me.”

Tanner almost snorts. “Since when has that bothered you?”

M intervenes before Q can snap in reply. “Enough. You’re saying he overstepped a boundary? That’s to be expected. You’ve read his file. That’s the whole reason we need you to work with him.”

Q knows he should tell them that the agent showed up at his home. Such a transgression is so severe that not even M could excuse it, but he’s also afraid admitting so would jeopardize his position. Perhaps they’ll think he encouraged the behavior. They’ve already accused him of behaving in an unprofessional matter with Bond. One agent is forgivable; two agents is a pattern of violations.

“I’m…concerned…” he vaguely answers.

M’s brows arch. “Has he touched you inappropriately?”

Q’s ears burn. “ _No_.”

“Made suggestive comments?”

He can’t tell them about the accusation that he’s in love with Bond. He’s too petrified to ever say the words aloud because he knows they’re true. “No.”

“I’m confused about what you’re reporting,” Tanner sighs.

 _You and me both_. “I don’t think our partnership is fruitful.”

“According to the reports you’ve been sending me, it seems extremely fruitful. He’s been socializing more. Complaints against him have gone down. All-in-all, extremely productive, I’d say,” M says, glancing at Tanner, who nods in agreement.

His gaze flickers back and forth between the men, jaw clamped shut because he knows he’s utterly bollocksed. There’s nothing he can say without incriminating himself, and judging by the amused quirk of his brows, M knows this.

 

* * *

 

Q returns to mission control and discovers that 009 is indeed waiting at his desk. The man is facing the communal screen, observing the various work items and stream of team messages. Sensing Q approaching, he turns and immediately says, “I wish to apologize.”

“Oh?” he asks, attempting to keep his tone light. 009 doesn’t ask why he’s late, or why he’s still carrying around his bag and coat. Q deposits the items at his desk.

“Yes, for visiting your flat without permission,” 009 says, voice too loud, completely missing the fact that Q is trying to be discreet. He shoots a murderous look and the man frowns. “Sorry,” he says, voice lowering, “But you seemed upset with me and I don’t wish to upset you.”

A cursory glance around the room. None of the subordinates are eavesdropping or even seem aware they’re discussing anything of intrigue. Q sighs, gazing up at the agent. Alex’s eyes are worried and he’s standing too close, but Q doesn’t have the energy or desire to tell him to step backwards. “What was your first hint I was upset? When I screamed at you to get out?” he smirks.

“Yes,” Alex nods, “After I mentioned 007.” He pauses. “I’ve never heard you yell before.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

“You were angry. I won’t come over without permission again.”

“Thank you,” Q mumbles, glancing away to the screen. The to-do items are piling up. He’ll need to quickly discuss the quiz questions with 009 and then move on to other work matters.

“May I?” Alex asks.

Distracted, Q asks: “Hm?”

“May I come over again?”

Q looks at him, fully expecting to see the man smirk, but 009 seems perfectly serious. Then again, of course he is. He’s not sure Alex really knows how to tell a joke. “Why?” is all he can think to ask.

“I like your flat, and to see the cats,” Alex says, adding, “I like seeing you outside of work.”

The warm sensation returns, originating at the bank of his neck and spreading outwards, wrapping his throat, creeping up his cheeks. “Sure you’re not using me for my cats?” he mumbles, desperate to buy some time—a few additional seconds to think and suss out what exactly is going on. It’s been so long since anyone fancied him that he’s in denial that it’s happening right now. He must be misreading 009’s intentions.

“No, I like you,” 009 replies confidently, “You’re brilliant, and I like the sound of your voice. And you’re beautiful.”

“ _Alex_ ,” Q hisses, face reddening as he glances over the man’s shoulder. No one heard, but still…He notices the man is grasping a piece of paper. The answer to yesterday’s quiz, but when Alex shows it to him, he sees the sentiments written in bullet point list form: _Brilliant, nice voice, beautiful_.

“In case I got nervous and forgot,” Alex admits with a sheepish smile.

The gesture is so sweet that Q has to sit down on a nearby stool and sigh, tentatively glancing up at him. “It’s not allowed. I’d be taking advantage of you.”

“Why? Because that psychiatrist wrote those things about me? I’m not an invalid. I know what I want.”

That’s true. The fact that Alex is mildly autistic doesn’t mean he’s not a person with desires like anyone else. He just has a different approach to obtaining those cravings.

“I don’t know what to say,” he confesses.

“We’d be good together. We’re an exact match intellectually and we’re attracted to each other.” When Q looks at him in surprise, Alex smiles slightly, “At least, I think we are.”

He sighs, subdued by the man’s candid observations, and a little surprised that his commitment to work decorum is apparently easily defeated by flattery from a handsome man. _But that’s not really a surprise, is it?_ “Your observations are correct,” he mumbles.

Alex’s spine straightens and he nods, clearly pleased that this is the case. “May I visit you this evening?”

Despite himself, Q chuckles, because his life really is absurd. “You may.”

“Shall we review the quiz questions?”

A memory of sitting in M’s office, agreeing to the pilot program that would help socialize 009. “I think we’re beyond that, don’t you?” he asks.

Alex’s eyes shine, and Q looks at them closely, noticing that they really are rather pretty. “I’ll see you at seven.”

 

* * *

 

It’s Friday night, so by the time he leaves work the pub crowd has already rushed the trains, and his car bursts at the seams: grizzled office workers with loosened ties and inebriated university students, but Q is too distracted by his evening plans to pay them any mind—even when an elfish brunette slumps against him with an apologetic (and somewhat flirtatious) smile and a slurred, “Sorry.”

He’s thinking about Alex, and the fact that their first date is occurring on a Friday night, and he probably should have picked up groceries to cook. That’s the polite thing to do, isn’t it? The man is coming to his home, so serving him a depressing sandwich or takeaway is out.

Luckily, what he lacks in basic food staples, he can make up for in alcohol. Q has a few bottles of perfectly respectable wine in his cabinets, and he opens one as he begins the process of rummaging through the kitchen to see what he can dig up for sustenance given the late hour. He stayed too late at MI6, so he’ll have an hour (at the most) to prepare things. No time for a shower, but no matter—he sheds his suit jacket and tie, unbuttons his collar to the clavicle and considers himself in the washroom mirror. _Not bad_ , he thinks, mussing his hair a bit so it looks less severe. He rolls his sleeves to the elbow and steps back to look again. _That’ll do._

Breezes back into the kitchen and lifts his glass of wine from the counter, helping himself to a generous swig. Just to soothe his nerves. Alex has been to his home before, but never under these circumstances, and Q’s heart thunders somewhere in the vicinity of his throat at the mere idea that there is a _possibility_ of sex. Can one forget how to do it entirely? He hopes it’s like autopilot and his body will simply take over. He takes another sip for courage and walks to the stove where the blue flame is heating an iron skillet. _Stir-fry_. That seems like a civilized compromise: delicious and efficient. He has enough vegetables to make it work, plus the rice going in the cooker, timed perfectly for 1900 hours.

Q stirs the wooden spoon around, making sure the veggies cook evenly: red and green peppers, carrots, corn kernels, shredded romaine lettuce, with a bit of ginger, soy sauce, and a splash of dry sherry. Decent. Something he wouldn’t mind serving his own mum. He nods and takes another swig of wine, decadence interrupted by the buzzing of the cellphone in his pocket. He licks his red lips and smiles, answering, “You better hurry up or you’ll be late,” with a glance to the oven clock. Half an hour to go.

“Q?”

He nearly drops the wine glass, but at the last second deposits it on the kitchen counter. Babbage pauses from eating to look up at his minder, with all his gangly flailing. “James?” Eyes pinched shut, index finger jabbing his brow in punishment for using the overly familiar name. An eye cracks open to consider the home screen. _Unknown number_. “Where are you?”

“Who did you think was calling?”

“Where _are_ you?”

“I’ve been pulled off mission. Didn’t M tell you?”

 _No. He never bloody tells me anything._ “You’re both coming back to London?”

“Just me. Look, I’ll be back at MI6 by Monday. I want to see you.”

How he wishes those words didn’t make the bottom of his stomach drop out. _Just me. No Madeleine_. Could Moneypenny’s prophecy have been so prescient? “Are you all right?” he asks, hating how warm he feels just from listening to the sound of 007’s voice.

Bond chuckles into his ear. “Of course I am. Hope you’re staying out of trouble.” Q knows he’s putting on a brave face. Something has happened. Madeleine has left, and James is heartbroken once more, which is why he’s running back to MI6—and more specifically, Q. _His backup plan_. He wishes he felt bitter instead of embarrassingly grateful.

The bell buzzes loud in his flat and Q jumps. “I have to go,” he mumbles, hanging up before Bond can say anything bewitching to keep him on the line.

Q switches the flame on the stove to low to keep the food warm and goes to open the door.

Alex is dressed in a long, strikingly royal blue overcoat, a grey suit, and tie the color of eggplant that makes his eyes look even bluer. Q forces himself to say something because he knows he’s staring. “Um, come in,” he smiles apologetically, nudging Heisenberg out of the way with his bare toes, “Someone has a fan club.”

Alex steps inside and smiles as he crouches to pet the female feline. “Nice to see you again.” When he stands, Q helps him out of his jacket, hanging it on a hook beside his own overcoat. “Dinner smells wonderful.”

“I made a stir-fry. I hope that’s to your liking?” he asks, with a glance over his shoulder, as he walks into the kitchen. The man nods, looking around, even though this is his second time in Q’s home. He’s always observing, drinking in endless details. His gaze lingers on Q’s wine glass and he feels strangely embarrassed for drinking by himself. “Would you like a glass?”

“Please,” Alex says, pulling out a stool to sit at the island, instead of taking a seat in the parlor. For some reason, Q likes that decision. He pours the man a glass and watches as he takes his first sip. “Very nice,” he says, nodding in approval. There’s a moment of silence as Q plates the rice and vegetables, and he’s momentarily concerned conversation may be awkward, when Alex suddenly asks: “Did you know I was gay right away?”

Q nearly drops the plates. “Uh…” he laughs, looking up to, once again, see Alex is perfectly serious. He places a plate in front of him, pulls up the second stool, and sits kitty-corner to him. “No, not at first. It was when I asked if you had a girlfriend. You hesitated, and I thought, well, maybe…”

“Ah, that was my tell,” he smirks, spearing a pepper wedge and popping it into his mouth. “Mm, quite good,” he nods.

Another wave of warmth—from the alcohol, but also the praise and the sound of Alex’s voice. He has a slow methodical way of speaking that blurs his accent. Q’s fascinated by it. “You probably knew right away with me,” he guesses and Alex’s eyes shine fondly. He offers a shy smile. “I’ve never been very good at hiding it,” he says, cringing, “Not that I want to hide it. You know what I mean…”

“I do. It’s just not discussed at MI6.”

“Heavens, no,” Q shakes his head. He can’t imagine M ever having to oversee a tolerance and diversity workshop. He doesn’t know if the idea is more hilarious or horrifying. “Last of the straight boys clubs,” he smirks, popping a forkful of stir-fry into his mouth. He hums, pleased with the outcome.

“I don’t know about that. There are more than a few rumors about agents.”

“Really?” Q asks, intrigued, “Like who?”

“Well, 007, for starters.”

His fork clatters loudly against the side of his plate, and though he picks it up quickly, it’s too late. Alex is watching him calmly, evenly, perhaps having anticipated the response. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he says, queasy because the words are true. He has no firsthand experience with Bond’s dalliances with the more masculine sex. But he has heard things—rumors—that are almost undoubtedly true. Bond’s been an international spy for so long—and has had to seduce so many people—it would require more mental jiujitsu to believe he _hasn’t_ slept with a man (or several men).

Rustling by their feet, and when he looks down, a wide-eyed Babbage is circling Alex’s stool legs. Grateful for the distraction, Q smiles. “I’ve never seen them so besotted.”

“Cats like me,” Alex confirms, extending a long arm and graceful fingers so the cat can nuzzle them.

This permits Q a moment to look at him in profile and the high slopes of his cheekbones. He’s a handsome man, like 007, but beautiful in a way that reminds him of a marble statue. When Alex glances at him, Q smiles and camouflages staring by burying his face in the wine glass.

After dinner, Alex helps him tidy up (another pleasant surprise), and they migrate to the parlor, Q bringing the bottle of wine with them, and refreshing their glasses before they sit together on the small couch—more a love seat—their knees nearly touching.

“What made you want to join the Double O program?” he asks, slowly wading into a touchy subject. Alex isn’t like the other Double Os. He’s not hyper-masculine. For one thing, he wanted to sit in the kitchen as Q cooked and offered to clean up afterwards. He’s quiet and thoughtful in a way that reminds him more of the Q branch engineers than field killing machines like Bond.

“They recruited me,” he says, smiling when he sees he’s surprised Q with the answer. “My target shooting may not be exemplary, but I really am quite fit,” he teases.

Q knows. He’s seen his file. “Oh, I didn’t mean…” he offers.

Alex holds up a hand with a teasing look in his eyes. “I possess a series of innate abilities that MI6 thought could potentially be useful in the field. I have a photographic memory and can process calculations and formulas as fast as a computer. And I can run a three minute kilometer,” he says, shrugging, “The rest they thought could be made up with training.”

“I’ve seen your scores. You’ve gotten quite good.”

The man leans towards him, head dipped down as if sharing a secret. “Are you going to talk to me like my quartermaster all night?”

Stunned, Q laughs (almost snorts, embarrassingly), and looks into his glass, swirling the burgundy liquid around. _Bloody hell_. This close, he can smell Alex again (under considerably more pleasant circumstances this time). Sandalwood, the heady bite all masculine men seem to have, something else he can’t quite place—maybe his antiperspirant. Q wishes to stick his face under his arm and breathe in.

“What do you want to talk about?” he mumbles, distracted by Alex’s wet, full mouth. The man takes the glass from his hands and Q helplessly watches as he places the vessels side by side on the table. “What—?” he asks just as Alex leans over and kisses him. Q makes a soft noise of surprise and he pulls back, eyes concerned.

“Is this all right?”

“Yes,” he sighs, reaching for him, dragging him forward by the lapels. _Better than all right_. He kisses his mouth desperately, delighting in the way Alex grabs around his waist and pulls him forth, just the right amount of hungry. He’s been deprived of affection so long that having it now is making him a little mad, his fingertips quaking as he touches the furnace of Alex’s chest through his dress shirt, fumbling to loosen his tie and remove it so he can unbutton his collar.

“Avery… _Avery_.” It takes him a disconcertingly long time to figure out Alex is whispering his real name. A tender look on the man’s face as he takes Q’s hands and kisses the backs of his knuckles. “It’s fast,” he observes—not a rejection, but a clear request. Hunger has spurred Q into hyperdrive. He’s ready to dive into bed and Alex wants to know him better first.

“Sorry,” he smiles, face burning, embarrassed by his primal urges.

“I want to,” Alex clarifies.

“We’ll go slow,” Q suggests, leaning forward to kiss him again.

Kissing just to kiss is new for Q, but it allows him to focus on the entirety of Alex’s presence: his clever mouth, his smell, the beauty, strength, and promise of muscles waiting under the curtain of his suit. The man permits Q to guide him forward so he’s draped between his legs as they neck, wrapping his legs around Alex’s waist and rolling his hips until the man breaks away and smirks. “ _Slow_ ,” he reminds.

“I know,” Q pants, feigning innocence as he leans up and kisses and sucks on the side of Alex’s neck.

He assumed the man would appreciate his ministrations, and he does, gasping and craning his neck to the side to give Q more room, a large hand moving to cup the back of his head (jostling his glasses a bit in the process), and Q can’t help but fantasize about having the man’s cock in his mouth. It’s the wine. The alcohol is making him too hot and lowering his inhibitions.

His phone chirps inside his pocket and Q ignores it until the phone beeps three more times and he recognizes the sounds as being alerts from the SmartBlood program. “Bugger,” he gasps. “I’m sorry. I should check—”

He doesn’t need to finish the thought because Alex climbs off him, distractingly flushed, hair asunder, neck sporting angry, red marks where Q bit him. He waves his hand through the air, a signal that he needs some time to compose himself anyway. Q glances down and notices his slacks are tighter in the crotch, and he spots the outline of a very promising length, but forces his gaze to the screen.

It’s Bond. Of course it’s Bond. He phoned to inform Q that he’s flying back to London, but still, seeing the red dot creeping closer and closer to home, Q suddenly feels cooler and extremely sober. He’s back in the basement lab, waiting for the lift doors to open. _Hoping_.

“Is it urgent?” Alex asks, giving him an out.

Q sucks in a deep breath and looks at him—the result of Q attempting to go slow. He’s practically ripped the man’s collar open and his neck is going to be bruised tomorrow. If he was to be honest with himself, he is unsure Alex can handle the ravenous force living inside him. If he doesn’t send him home this minute, they’re going to do something stupid that Alex will regret the next day, and Q will hate himself for being the cause of his contrition.

“Uh, it is. I’m sorry,” he says, adjusting his glasses, “Let’s reschedule, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course,” Alex agrees immediately, maybe a little relieved. But then he leans over and kisses him. “When can I see you again?”

The corner of his mouth lifts at the earnest phrasing. He’s never had someone ask him that before. In fact, outside of romantic films and books, he didn’t think people really asked that question. “Are you free next Friday?” Having Alex around to distract him on a weekday is out of the question, and Bond nearing London is going to be an interference the rest of the weekend.

“Let’s order so you don’t have to cook.”

Q smiles. “Perfect.”

Alex almost stands, but hesitates and turns to face him on the couch instead. “I haven’t ruined it, have I?”

His brow furrows for a split second before he understands what Alex is asking. He thinks Q is cross because he requested to go slow. “No,” he says, cupping Alex’s face and kissing him again. His chest aches with surprising vigor when he considers the thick current of vulnerability underscoring the man’s question. Have people left before when Alex wanted to go slow?

“Good,” he sighs when they’ve parted, “I like you.”

“I like you too,” Q smiles, kissing him once more for good measure.

 

* * *

 

He’s hungover the next day, a prelude to the remainder of his weekend. The only highlight is when Alex phones him the next day (which he genuinely wasn’t expecting).

“I wanted to thank you again,” the man says, his voice a lovely drone in Q’s ear even though he’s in so much pain that the light filtering through his bedroom curtains personally offends him.

He’d ended up thinking about Bond the remainder of Friday night, then finished the bottle of wine, and removed his phone and laptop batteries before he could do something mad like figure out Bond’s cellphone number, ring him, and proclaim his undying love.

Hearing Alex’s voice now, he wonders why he bothers to think about James at all.

“My pleasure,” he croaks, pausing to clear his throat, “What are you up to?”

“I’m going for a run by the Thames.”

Q eases up onto his elbows and casts a wary glance around his bedroom. The empty bottle is on his bedside table. The cats are sitting upright, eagerly waiting for their (now late) breakfast. “Calisthenics. A superb idea. The Double Os yearly physicals are on Monday.”

“Would you like to come running with me?”

“No, I would not, Alex,” he grumbles.

The man’s laughter drifts through the phone. “I’ll see you Monday.”

 

* * *

 

Monday morning there’s a slip of paper waiting for him on his desk, written in strange symbols that Q immediately recognizes as code. He grins, knowing it’s from Alex, and spends about a minute decrypting it: _Good morning, beautiful and wise Quartermaster. The Double Os are being herded into isolation until our fitness examinations, but we’ve been told Q branch is supervising the tests. I hope to continue to impress you. Yours in service, Alex._

He smiles and nearly deposits the slip into the rubbish, but thinks better of it at the last moment, folds the paper in half, and slides it into his pocket. For privacy reasons, and because he doesn’t wish to part with it just yet.

“What are you grinning about?” Moneypenny asks, having apparently manifested from thin air.

Q thinks quickly. “The Aston Martins finally being done. I cannot begin to explain what a tortuous process that was.”

“Mm, speaking of tortuous processes: Bond is back.”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t remind me. I just hope he passes the fitness requirement.” The new M isn’t likely to massage 007’s scores, as was his predecessor’s custom.

“Any grand plans for the holidays?”

He stares blankly at her for a moment until realizing Christmas is next weekend, a couple days after his date with Alex, not that he can mention that to Moneypenny. “Uh, day of? Not sure, to be honest.” His family lives well outside London, and they stopped asking him home for the holidays ages ago. Truthfully, Q has never enjoyed making a fuss around the holidays because he’s always found them a bit lonely.

“Well, there’s a seat open at my mum’s if you want it,” she wrinkles her nose, “Robbie and I are still doing holidays separately.”

“What a lovely offer,” Q pauses, not being able to think of a reason to turn her down.

“You can witness the awkward holiday tradition of my mum second-guessing all of my life decisions.”

Phrased that way, how could he resist? “I’d love to.”

 

* * *

 

Mathematically speaking, the chances of Bond and Alex being in the testing facilities at the same time are relatively low. The small room can only facilitate two agents at a time and there are 25 Double O agents, though five of them are overseas in various stations that they could not be pulled from due to the sensitivity of their missions. That leaves twenty agents to test, and Q says a little prayer as he steps into the ancillary observation room that the math gods are on his side. The second he looks through the one-way glass wall, he sees Alex standing in front of a woman wearing a white lab coat and Bond lounged out on a plastic chair, watching them off to the side.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Q hisses under his breath.

“Sorry?” Tanner asks, looking up from his iPad.

“Nothing. Um, have they started?” Q asks, looking around for a seat before deciding he’d rather stand for this.

M walks through the open door of the observation room. “Not yet. They’re just about to,” he says, closing the door behind him. “We’re going to divide the fitness test into two days so we’re not stuck in here for the remainder of the afternoon.”

“Cheers to that,” Tanner sighs, dropping into a plastic chair and squinting through the window. “What were 009’s marks last year?”

“Sixty-seven,” Q says, having carefully memorized them. Sixty-seven out of 100. Not terrible, but not good. Those scores put him in the bottom third of the Double Os.

“He certainly looks fitter,” M observes, sitting at the back of the room in the shadows, legs crossed ankle to knee, “Doesn’t he? More muscular. He looked sickly, as I recall.” Q says nothing because he can’t think of a safe response, but Tanner hums in agreement. “And Bond?”

“Ninety,” Tanner replies, squinting at the softly glowing screen, “But those were the previous M’s marks.”

“So that means in the low-eighties,” M scoffs.

“That’s quite good for his age,” Q says, unable to help himself. He stares through the window, watching Bond. He’s still dressed in a rumpled suit, but there’s a few days worth of stubble lining his jaw, and dark circles under his eyes. He looks exhausted. Probably fresh off the plane. “Can’t we reschedule him? He only just got back from the airport.”

“He’ll be fine,” Tanner says dismissively.

Alex strips in the testing area, in front of the female agent and Bond. Double Os belong to MI6, so their bodies are government property, and agents are not permitted privacy. Still, this isn’t like last year when Q supervised his testing. They’ve been intimate since then, and he feels uncomfortable watching Alex slide out of his dress shirt, so his gaze drops to the floor. Periodically, he glances upwards, unable to help seeing the ladder of his ribs, the broad expanse of his chest, the solid cut of his abdominal muscles, and then—on the fifth look—Alex is wearing the assigned black leggings in which he’ll be expected to perform (no shoes: better to replicate a worst-case scenario).

The female agent collects his clothing items, folding them and placing articles on hangers to wait on a standing clothing rack so they won’t wrinkle. She hesitates when collecting Alex’s dress shirt, and Q doesn’t understand why until her gaze quickly drops to the floor, and he sees it: the angry purple welts on Alex’s neck.

“I say, someone’s been having a good time,” Tanner smirks.

Alex gazes at the woman, face politely blank, as though he has no idea why she’s suddenly become flustered. Q feels too hot, beads of perspiration running from under his arms and down his flanks. He should step into the hallway for a breath of cooler air, but he doesn’t want to miss Alex’s test. Though he tells himself not to, Q glances to Bond to observe his reaction, but the other agent doesn’t respond, though he’s certain to have spotted the love bites.

Q watches the female agent affix electrodes to his chest and temples. The cords lead to a computer that will monitor his vitals as he runs various terrains that will differ according to speed and elevation. Alex climbs onto the treadmill and stoops down so she can strap the breathing mask to his face that will stymy his airflow (to replicate higher elevation). Q wipes his hands on his slacks, suddenly terribly nervous. The previous year, he didn’t have a particular opinion of 009’s lackluster performance, but now he’s enormously invested in Alex.

Bond is watching the other agent, face blank, which means he’s making silent assessments. He moves for the first time, creeping forth with all the powerful grace of a lion, until his elbows are perched atop kneecaps, and he’s fiercely considering the other man. Q tells himself his sudden interest in Alex is not—absolutely _not_ —because Bond has put two and two together, and realizes it was Alex whom Q thought was ringing. Bond is smart, but he’s not bloody clairvoyant.

And yet….

Suddenly, the man smirks and looks straight at the window. Q’s gaze drops. It’s nothing. Simply Bond being arrogant and difficult, as usual. He doesn’t know. _He can’t_.

“009’s test is beginning,” the blonde agent says into a microphone, for the sake of the videotape. All tests are recorded, in addition to being observed by Q branch and MI6 superiors.

Things, as usual, start out rather dull. Alex is expected to maintain a light jog at various elevations, and then the speed picks up as the elevation changes more rapidly, until his legs are blurred and the treadmill looks like a bucking bronco. It’s not an easy task, especially with restricted air. Q has seen agents panic, fly over the handlebars, slip and fall, smacking into a wall. One year, an agent had a heart attack and was revived with panels.

Alex performs extremely well—better than his marks last year. At a dead sprint during a very steep incline, his heart rate stays low and steady.

“Well done,” Tanner says, nodding. He looks impressed.

Q’s chest swells and he realizes he’s proud. Afterwards, Alex is permitted a moment of rest as the electrodes are removed, and he stands with his hands on his hips, breathing heavily but steadily, pulling deep breaths through his nose and exhaling through his mouth, which is the most efficient way to slow his heart rate. His torso glistens with sweat and Q looks away again, back to Bond, whose face is once again a blank mask. _He’s threatened_ , Q realizes, though he thinks it must be on a professional level and not because Bond could possibly know about their relationship. _And even if he did, he wouldn’t care_.

A range of motion and strength tests are next: How many pull-ups can an agent do in 30 seconds? (25), how many sit-ups? (29), how many push-ups? (26)—all better than last year’s marks. Alex jumps to his feet at the end of the series and glances to the window, and it occurs to Q that the agent is performing better because he’s watching. His face burns at the realization, and he’s deeply thankful for the room’s dim lighting.

By the end of the test, Alex has shown improvements in all areas, including speed and flexibility. “These marks will put him in the top third. A complete reversal from last year,” Tanner says, glancing back to M with arched brows, “Bloody impressive.”

“I wonder what changed,” M muses, and Q tells himself that his tone is not suggestive—that it’s entirely in his mind—or M is referring to the bruises, courtesy of some nameless, faceless lover he imagines the agent has waiting for him at home.

The blonde agent hands Alex a towel so he can dab his brow and wipe off the excess perspiration from his skin. He’ll be allowed to shower once Bond is finished.

Q repeats the looking-not-looking game as 007 undresses without a trace of self-consciousness. It could be his imagination, but he thinks the man winks at the blonde, who offers a little smile as she accepts his things and hangs the suit beside Alex’s. Q rolls his eyes and angrily stares at the tips of his shoes.

“Somethings change, somethings stay the same,” M wistfully declares.

He peeks into the room and sees Alex sitting on a chair, chest still heaving, hair matted to his forehead. He’s surprised by how muscular the agent is, though he shouldn’t be. All Double Os are expected to be in peak physical condition. It simply never occurred to him that sweet, brilliant, awkward Alex could also look like an Adonis.

Q has seen Bond partially nude before during testing, but he’s sad to discover the sight of an unclothed James still has the same effect on him. Bond’s chest is broad, his legs muscular, bronzed flesh peppered with telltale signs of a long, hard life as a spy: scars, burns, and bruises (some look fresher than others). _Get yourself sorted_ , he silently scolds, and looks away again.

To no one’s surprise, Bond performs very well on the running test. During the apex of the course, he barks, “Faster!” through the mask, loud enough for Q to hear.

“That’s as fast as the test goes, 007,” the female agent informs him, even though Bond knows that. He’s showing off to dim the shine of Alex’s performance.

Twenty-six pull-ups, 29 sit-ups, 27 pushups….

“That’s why we test them in pairs, you know,” M remarks, “The competitive spirit.”

 _You have no idea_ , Q grouses inside the chamber of his mind, an unrelenting blush returning to his cheeks when Bond hops to his feet at the end of the test, brows smugly quirked.

When the agents are excused to shower, Q waits for M and Tanner to leave, then pens a quick note in Alex’s code: _Well done. Can’t wait for Friday_ , and leaves the folded piece of paper inside Alex’s jacket pocket. He returns to mission control and buries himself in work, knowing Alex and Bond will be preoccupied the rest of the day with the more boring aspects of their physical examines: blood work, blood pressure tests, and general examinations. Q branch and MI6 heads won’t be in attendance again until tomorrow for the shooting range and weapons aptitude tests.

Instead of going straight home after work, he stops at a pub near his flat and kills an hour steadily drinking pints. Q tells himself that he’s unwinding after a busy day, but drinks as a man on a mission to forget the knowing smirk on Bond’s face when he bested Alex’s scores. _What game is he playing_? Random (and pointless) acts of petulance are not outside Bond’s typical range of behavior, but this was different—as though he had some previous rivalry with 009 beyond the normal competitiveness between Double Os. Today felt personal, and Q doesn’t understand why.

He’s a bit wobbly by the time he makes it back to the flat (the key refusing to glide into the lock on the first and second go), and then he’s inside. Bag heavily deposited on the floor, coat tossed in the corner as opposed to neatly hung. His hand slides along the wall for purchase before turning the corner into the kitchen. Q flips on the light and fetches a cat food can, feeding Heisenberg and Babbage before tossing the empty can in the rubbish and turning around to face the parlor—

Q gasps, hand clenched over his heart. “Christ! You scared the hell out of me.”

Bond clicks on a floor lamp. He’s seated in an overstuffed chair by the window. “That’s not a very nice way to say hello.”

“You broke into my flat!” Q shouts, overly hysterical due to the drinks. But still… _bloody Bond_.

“I keep telling you to get a dog. Those cats are useless.”

Q throws up a hand in disgust and marches into the bedroom. He wrestles out of his suit jacket and tie and quickly returns to the parlor, a bit calmer now that he’s had a moment to process that James has broken into his home. “Why are you here?” he asks, hands perched atop hips.

“I told you I was going to come see you when I returned.”

“At MI6. I didn’t think you meant breaking and entering.” Bond gropes at his jacket pocket and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Amazed, Q watches him fish out one and place it between his lips. “No, absolutely not,” he growls, stalking over and plucking the cigarette from his mouth, “You’re not smoking in my flat.”

Bond grips his wrist with surprising strength. “Why are you so cross?” he sighs, gaze sliding up the length of his body, and Q realizes he’s drunk.

“I _told_ you—” he hisses, the cigarette falling from his grasp and disappearing under the chair.

The man makes a soothing noise with his mouth and pulls him forward. Q flails, but ends up sitting across Bond’s lap, a strong arm looping his waist. He’s so surprised that he momentarily stops struggling. Bond’s mouth is warm beneath his ear. “You’re lovely when you’re cross.”

“James…” he warns, no real menace in his voice. Being held like this by the man is the culmination of years of fantasies, and the alcohol has awakened the terrible itch that has gone so long unsatisfied. Still, he remembers Alex and their games, and presses a hand to James’ chest, attempting to stand. “Wait…” His objections are anemic because this is Bond, the man he’s been obsessed with for ages—and here he is, _finally_.

Bond grips that wrist too and pulls it away so he loses the leverage. “When was the last time someone looked after you, hm?” he asks, breath thick with drink (Q thinks the smell is whisky). He finally yanks his wrist free, but Bond’s hand snakes under his shirt, holding him by the dip in his spine. Before Q can think of an answer, James noses at the open collar, pushing the fabric back so he can kiss his clavicle. The sensation makes him dizzy with lust and Q shuts his eyes under the guise of summoning the willpower to tell Bond to stop, but sinking into darkness only heightens the delicious tingling.

“You should go,” he somehow says, but now Bond is unbuttoning his shirt.

He gasps when the man’s hot mouth envelopes a pink bud. “Tell me to leave again and I’ll go.” Bond’s hot breath on his sternum. Q’s brow furrows. He can’t physically make himself say it. “Good,” Bond sighs, surging forward to kiss him so roughly that Q thinks his bottom lip splits, but it feels so good—to be touched, the fact that Bond _wants him_ like this. He scrambles to his knees, straddling the man’s lap, and Bond stands, easily bearing his weight. Q clings to him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms thrown around his neck, as the man walks them over to the couch.

But when he thinks the word _couch_ , Alex’s face pops into his mind. “No…no,” he gasps, which Bond interprets as a request to be moved to the bedroom. The realization paints a new picture: Bond naked in _his_ bed, tangled in _his_ sheets. Not Madeleine’s. Not with Madeleine.

Bond drops him onto the mattress, springs squeaking noisily and the man sighs. “I see it’s been a while.” Q sprawls onto his back, willing his vision to focus. _A vast understatement_. He prays the tube of lubricant and box of condoms are still in his bedside drawer (and they haven’t expired). Large, heavy hands touch him, pulling at fabric, and he squirms—lifting a shoulder, raising his hips, helping Bond undress him. “ _Fuck_ , you’re gorgeous,” he growls, leaning down to bite and suck on a sharp hipbone.

“Why did you leave?” he babbles, panting for breath while watching Bond nuzzle and lick his lower abdomen. “And you came for the bloody car, _the car_ , James…”

“What’re you talking about?” he murmurs and Q stops talking because now he’s disrobing, and in a few seconds, they’re both going to be naked. “Open your legs. Let me see you.” _Christ_. His head drops heavy to the mattress and he spreads his thighs, gasping when a warm, rough palm cups the crevice and strokes. “Good boy.” He licks his lips and glances to the foot of the bed where Bond is now standing naked, his cock matching the rest of him: powerful and virile, rock hard already. Q is only half-hard. It’s the alcohol. Everything feels fuzzy, but in a beautiful way.

He doesn’t tell Bond where the condoms are, but suddenly the man walks over to the table and opens the drawer. Q doesn’t know if it's his intuition, or if he snooped around and found the items before he came home. A torn condom foil and the tube of lubricant land beside his head, and he watches James roll on the latex. Q grips his cock and strokes slowly, length hardening as he watches Bond smear a bit of lubricant onto the shaft. He’s definitely done this before.

Instinctively, he moves to roll onto his stomach, since that’s the way he’s done it in the past, but Bond grips his thigh. “Like this,” he says and Q sucks in a deep breath. He’s suddenly too shy to say something like _it’s been a while_ , or _go slow_ , but a part of him wants it to hurt a bit anyway. Pain always helps his mind focus, cutting through the muddy layers of drink. Fortunately, he doesn’t need to express reservations. Bond wets his fingers with the lubricant and readies him, easing an index finger, and then his middle finger inside, gently working him open.

Allowing Bond to touch him like this, he feels utterly exposed, but then the man presses deeply and a sharp jolt of pleasure shoots up his spine. Q’s back arches and he cries out, fingers groping for purchase, curling into the comforter and pulling. His cock rests solidly against his belly, leaking.

“James…” he begs.

Instantaneously, his hand withdraws and Q feels empty. Rough hands grab his hips and drag him to the edge of the mattress and direct his legs backwards until Q catches on and hooks his hands beneath his knees, pulling thighs further apart. James swears again and presses his cock against Q’s entrance.

He shuts his eyes, brow knitted during the first push. Once James is inside, he focuses on breathing throughout the endless push, aware he’s babbling nonsensically, unable to stop his breathless moaning because James feels huge inside him.

“Christ, you’re tight,” James gasps.

A surreal moment when his eyes fly back open and he sees Bond standing there, hips pressed against the curve of his rear. He’s dreaming. He must be dreaming. How many times has his brain provided this exact scenario and he woke up to sticky sheets, like a pathetic teenager? James gives a sharp thrust, tearing him from the daydream, and he yelps. The man sets a rapid, frenzied pace, Q bouncing across the bed, glasses sliding down his nose as he thrashes, attempting to shove back against him.

The sound of their pants and moans mingle with the noise of flesh colliding, and Q is amazed by how good it feels—how wild they are, clawing at one another, James thrusting roughly until Q embarrassingly whines. James collapses atop him, pumping his hips, and locks their lips together as Q moans into his mouth, his fingernails digging into the flesh of James’ back, drawing red lines into his skin.

His length is pinned between their pelvises, the friction incredible, and he comes quickly. “Don’t stop,” he gasps against James’ lips.

He jerks limply like a rag doll beneath James, Q moaning and reverently touching the man’s face, hypnotized as he watches the pleasure wash across his face, pride swelling in his chest that he’s the cause of it. It takes him a while to finish, perhaps another consequence of drinking, but it feels good, towards the end bordering on a little pain which only sharpens Q’s other senses. James’ thrusts take on a jagged, desperate edge, his cries growing in volume until he shoves deeply and stills, body drawn taught, and Q understands he’s coming.

Q lays beneath him, panting for breath, stunned.

Maybe fifteen minutes lapsed from discovery of break-in until this moment, and Q marvels that the fulfillment of his every wish could occur in such little time. The longer he lays there, however, the more time he has to sober and realize the full magnitude of what they’ve done. He’s quiet as James rolls off him and walks to the loo to dispose of the condom and bring back a damp washcloth.

Q cleans himself and then sits on the edge of the bed, aware James is watching him. The bed dips when he moves closer, James’ warm mouth roaming over his shoulder. “I’ve wanted to do that for ages.”

He looks over his shoulder, into the agent’s blue eyes. _But you only did it when someone else wanted me._

“Then why did you run off with her?”

James presses him to the bed so fast that his head swims. “You never said anything,” he growls, dangerous and incredibly sexy even now, after Q has had him. “How was I to know you were pining?”

“You knew,” Q accuses, feeling the wild, hot pressure at the back of his skull that means he’s about to do something mad and petulant, like cry.

“What do you want from me?” James cries, giving him a little shake, “I’m here now.”

 _For now. Never for long._ Moneypenny’s prophecy: alone again, within the month.

They stop fighting in order to kiss, James a heavy, reassuring weight atop him, thick fingers curling and pulling Q’s hair, his hands roaming across the man’s muscular back over and over.

At some point, they fall asleep. Q doesn’t even take off his glasses, though thankfully he passes out on his back so the frames aren’t bent when he wakes to a black room. One of them must have turned off the lights. He lays there for a moment, processing the sound of James’ heavy breathing, the weight of the man’s arm splayed across his stomach. Slowly, he slides out of bed and walks to the washroom to urinate and then look at himself in the mirror.

He sighs, gingerly touching the various welts and bite marks. There are fingertip-shaped bruises on his biceps, hipbones, and thighs.

Q turns off the loo light and walks back to the bedroom. He takes off his glasses, folds, and deposits them on the beside table. As he rests beside James, he reviews what a mess he’s made of things.

Already, the beginning of a hangover, made worse by the very vivid understanding that he’s betrayed Alex, even though they never clearly defined…whatever it is they’re doing. _He likes you. He was courting you, like a gentleman, and you hopped into bed with James_.

Springs squeak as James rolls onto his side, tossing again back towards Q, the mattress undulating like a waterbed. He huffs and is about to ask him what’s wrong when the man picks up his head and props up onto an elbow. All he can see is the outline of James’ head and shoulders—a dark mass atop a darker background. “James?” he asks, voice hoarse—from the sucrose in his drinks and all the subsequent unbridled screaming.

The silence is eerie, and he moves to prop up onto an arm as well, so that at least they’ll be eye level (even though he can’t see James’ expression). From the darkness a hand shoots out and grips him by the neck, slamming him back down to the bed. “James!” he cries again, but the pressure on his throat transforms the sound to a gargled yelp. He claws at the man’s forearm, which feels like a concrete pillar. Q kicks his legs and tries to shove Bond back by his face, but he simply swats away the hand, pinning it to the bed too.

His mouth gapes like a beached fish’s, legs spasming, his vision narrowing to a pinpoint, and Q has the horrible realization that Bond is about to kill him.

As quickly as the assault began, Bond ends it by releasing him, and Q sucks in a loud, trembling stream of air. He hears Bond swearing, his hands now tender as they touch Q’s brow and cheeks. “Q…” he says, panicked. “Look at me. Can you speak?”

“What…the…hell, James?” he pants, tears streaming down his face.

Bond reaches over him to turn on the beside lamp. His eyes are wild, and Q can see the pupils are extremely dilated. “I’m sorry. Are you hurt?” He dips down, peering at Q’s neck, probably checking for bruising. Afterwards, he gently brushes at Q’s cheeks, wiping away the tears.

 _Of course I’m hurt. You tried to strangle me_ , he thinks, unable to make his tongue move to force the words out. “What…was that?” he manages.

Some of the anger dissipates when he notices how terrified Bond still looks. He shakes his head and sighs, a helpless gesture into thin air. “Dreams. Vivid dreams.”

Q stares at him for a moment, decoding the words. He’s describing a PTSD episode. Bond has endured unimaginable hardships. He’s killed people, and had enemy agents try to kill him. He’s lost loved ones—seen them die right in front of him. “How long?” he quietly asks, gingerly touching his throat and wincing. Definitely bruising.

Bond frowns, noticing his reaction. “A while.”

“Who knows?”

“No one. Just you…” He adds, quietly: “M knew, but she kept it out of my file.”

Utterly unsurprising. Those two seemed determined to collaborate until James ran off a cliff in service of queen and country. Something clicks in his mind. “Madeleine…?” he rasps, reaching for his glasses and donning them so he can monitor Bond’s reaction.

The man shakes his head, throat bobbing at the memory. “I came to and she was screaming at me. I had a gun, but the clip wasn’t in it. Not that she knew that, of course,” he sighs. “She woke up and I was standing over her like that, unresponsive. What would you have done?”

Q doesn’t answer. A sane person like Madeleine would run for the hills, but Bond’s just tried to strangle Q, and he’s still sticking around because he’s a completely besotted moron.

He tests the damage by swallowing (successfully), so there’s no serious harm done. “You need to see a therapist,” he suggests, already anticipating the negative response.

“I’m not seeing a bloody therapist,” Bond growls, rolling out of bed. Q watches him angrily thump around the bedroom, locating his clothing.

He glances to the bedside clock: _5:15AM_. “Where are you going?”

“My hotel. I’ll need to shower and change before work,” he announces while pulling on his briefs and trousers. The man looks at him. “You should go back to sleep.”

Q shakes his head, sliding out of bed, keenly aware James is watching him as he locates his briefs. “I’m going to shower and run some errands before work. Laundry,” he says, idly glancing to the rumpled sheets, pointedly ignoring Bond’s smirk. The man sobers when Q stares at him, unsmiling. “You need to see a therapist. You attacked me, James. I could report that,” adding a moment later, when Bond gazes earnestly at him, “I won’t, but I could…”

“I usually take sleeping pills. They knock me out for the night, but I didn’t have them here, obviously…” he says, buttoning the front of his dress shirt.

Q sighs. “Fantastic. So now you’re self-medicating.”

Fully dressed with tie looped around his neck, Bond crosses the room and cups his face. Q sighs, begrudgingly recognizing that it feels nice, desperately trying to ignore the fact that he’s barely dressed (and extremely vulnerable) in front of a fully suited agent: a man for whom he happens to harbor unquenchable desires. “There you go again: being lovely when you’re cross.”

He sighs, helplessly watching as Bond slips past him into the hallway.

Q showers and changes into fresh clothing: slacks, a dress shirt and tie, plus slim-cut cardigan. He emerges into the parlor to find Bond smoking on the balcony (hardly a balcony, really, more a sturdy awning capable of supporting two bodies). He scowls disapprovingly when the man flicks the butt off the terrace and slips back into the parlor. “Please don’t do that. The smoke gets inside and I’m afraid one of the cats will get out.”

“Sorry,” Bond replies, not looking the slightest bit contrite. “Wait, _come here_ ,” he murmurs, catching Q by the elbow and pulling him close when he attempts to walk by him and fetch his coat. “Last night was fun. Why haven’t we done that before?”

Q sighs, gaze flitting from the knot of Bond’s tie to his face. He adjusts his glasses, trying not to focus on how, emitted by James, the scent of smoke is alluring and comforting, especially combined with the heat radiating off his body. _Because you never noticed me before_. “I’m your quartermaster,” he says instead.

Bond grins, arms looping his waist, grip tightening and practically lifting Q off his feet. “Ah, right,” he purrs, kissing the side of his neck and jaw. “We should do that more often…”

He wants to, which is why it’s so strange that all he can think about is Alex’s face when he asked the question: _I haven’t ruined it, have I_? Q is a man of two minds: part of him wants this raw animalistic connection he has with Bond, but another part of him longs for the romance and tender attention of Alex. “Is that what you want us to be?” he quietly asks.

“Of course. Didn’t you have fun?” Q smiles slightly, unable to claim he didn’t. Last night was spectacular—exactly what he needed. His whole body is loose and humming.

“So I shouldn’t expect a love note,” he teases. Q thinks of Alex’s handwriting: the tight, neat loops of cursive letters; the symmetrical lines of shapes.

Bond laughs, kissing his brow. “I wouldn’t know how to write one,” he jokes, stepping back to adjust his suit jacket. He pauses and looks back at him, brow furrowed. “Who’s sending you love letters?”

“No one,” Q says, keeping his voice light. “I’ll walk out with you.”

Bond carries the linen bag for him down to the sidewalk and then they pause outside his flat, the bag at Q’s feet, and consider each other, knowing Bond is about to walk in one direction and Q will depart the other way. Dressed in his double-breasted coat and leather gloves, he cuts quite the dashing figure, and Q finds himself smiling faintly, still shocked that the previous evening happened. He should feel giddy. He _should_ want to run into MI6, find Moneypenny, and tell her every sordid detail.

So why this icy sense of dread?

“You’re the only one on my side,” Bond says, “You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s not true…” Q says, thinking of Tanner and Moneypenny. Well, mostly Moneypenny.

Bond smiles faintly. “But they don’t know me like you do.”

Q opens his mouth, but is unsure of what to say. He wants to disagree, but the simple fact is: now that M is gone and all of Bond’s lovers have fled after discovering his previously unseen scars, Q is the only one left. “James…” He wants to reiterate that the man needs professional help—that Q can’t be his solution in the form of quick shags and suppressed psychiatric reviews.

But before he can utter the sentiment, Bond dips forth and kisses him. “I didn’t just come back for the car. I wanted to see you one last time before I left.”

He’s unable to answer, which is probably Bond’s intent because the man winks and saunters off with the unhurried swagger of a man who knows whomever is at his destination will wait.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arms testing and Q learns more about Alex

The bag of linens is heavy, like an anchor, and Q thinks of Jacob Marley’s chain as he drags it around London in search of an open coffee shop. He needs to kill a half an hour before the laundry mat he patrons opens for the day. He finds a shop that is open for the morning commute and orders a cup of Earl Grey, then parks at a small table by a window looking out to the street. He consults his cellphone and sighs. No calls. Slumping in his chair, chin dipping beneath the collar of his peacoat, he wonders where Alex is and what he’s doing. Probably preparing for the second day of his physical exam: arms testing and munitions knowledge. He hadn’t faired well last year, and is no doubt preoccupied with mentally preparing for the long day ahead of him. Q considers emailing some words of encouragement, but thinks better of it. MI6 monitors all of their communications, and besides, he doesn’t deserve to speak with the man.

 _Not after what you’ve done_.

The euphoria from being with James is gone, replaced by a deep sense of self-loathing. It’s so strange: when he was with James last night, nothing seemed more important than the fulfillment of his desires—that, indeed, it was his _right_ to have James after his years of service and unflinching loyalty. But now, in the clear light of day, Q sees that the reality is much simpler and quite ugly. He has violated Alex’s naive trust because lust and loneliness overwhelmed him.

“I am such a bloody wanker,” he mumbles into his tea, steam wafting forth from the force of expelled breath.

Q drops the linens off and takes the tube to work, his legs leaden and feet dragging in a meager attempt to delay the inevitable. At some point, he will have to face Alex and tell him what’s happened. He _has_ to. Messenger bag and coat deposited at work station, he walks a labyrinth of corridors and rides the lift to the third floor. The doors open and he walks to the end of a stark white hallway, plucking the ID card from the clip attached to his trouser pocket and swiping it through the security scanner. The doors open, revealing an observation lounge comprised of a few cushioned arm chairs and a tackily-printed carpet that looks like a relic from the original MI6. M and Tanner are already seated, gazing through the floor-to-ceiling glass window where they will have a bird’s eye view of the shooting range.

Tanner glances over his shoulder. “Ah, just in time,” he remarks, and when Q walks deeper into the room, he sees a pair of figures standing by the agent lockers on the main floor. That will be Bond and Alex, suiting up for the weapons test. Agents must wear the sterile white jumpsuits assigned by MI6 during appraisal, so as to avoid harm to their clothing and smelling acrid and sour from the gunpowder. Additionally, the jumpsuits allow for more mobility, which comes in handy during the sharpshooting portion of the test during which some agents prefer to take a knee whilst shooting, or lay on their stomachs combat-style.

Like yesterday, the agents strip in public, and Q feels uneasy seeing the men in such close proximity to one another even though they’re not interacting. Their heads are bowed as they unbutton dress shirts and slide ties from collars, avoiding eye contact, as though they’re not in the same room. _Good_ , he helplessly thinks, _Maybe they’ll keep that up the whole time_. Bond and Alex deposit their suits inside the lockers and fetch the waiting jumpsuits. Unlike yesterday, they will be permitted to wear their shoes, but there are elastic white booties provided to slip over the leather (to protect their shoes from damage, but also to keep the floor scuff-free).

Q can’t pull a full breath, so sustains himself on tiny sips of air as he watches the ridges of Alex’s spine as he hunches over, clad in only his dark briefs. The man glances to the side—at Bond—and Q stops breathing all together for a handful of moments. Just as long as it takes for Alex to look at Bond and see the scratches stretching across his back. Even from within the observation balcony, Q can see the red lines, a souvenir from their night of ill-advised ardor.

“Double Os, ay?” Tanner snorts, having seen the marks, and idly commenting to M in the casual and chauvinistic way of heterosexual men.

They assume, of course, the scratches are a token from one of Bond’s female conquests. He faces the window so they won’t see his face reddening, and so he can watch Alex’s response. The trouble is, he can’t see his face—only the back of his head. Q watching Alex watching Bond. But Bond languidly slides into the jumpsuit, pace unnecessarily sluggish, clearly allowing the other agent ample time to see his trophy. Payback for Alex’s love bites.

He sways a bit and is finally forced to sit down in a chair on the other side of M.

Short-range target practice is first in which agents fire a series of handguns of increasing caliber at targets of a faceless man’s head and torso. Alex is in lane B and James is directly next door in lane C, right in the middle of the range. The men don earmuffs, and Q desperately wishes he could see Alex’s face, even though knowing Bond’s cock-wagging display bothers him would ultimately make Q feel ill. At least he would know. If he could just look into Alex’s eyes, he’ll know how bad the damage is, and he’ll be able to begin the process of healing. Because in Q’s mind, all of this is still fixable. He’s been in worse pinches before and escaped unscathed.

The guns are loaded and placed on metal carts to the left of each lane. Agents select weapons left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and at the end of the series, a pair of agents will wheel out the next group of guns. They won’t be able to test all weapons in the MI6 facilities, of course. Scheduling pending, the agents will also be taken into the countryside where they’ll test larger munitions such as mortars, anti-tank weapons, and grenades. In Alex’s file, there was a note from last year, detailing that the noise from gunfire caused him to have an “episode.” That’s the extent of the psychiatrist’s report, and Q was not present for the exam, but according to the rumor mill: Alex stopped shooting his gun and approached his fellow agent, who at the time was still firing his weapon, disarmed the agent, and then (in front of MI6 superiors), dismantled the gun and walked off the firing course.

Later, he claimed to have no memory of the event. And yet, M kept him at MI6 as a Double O, purely because Alex is brilliant and they were hoping he would demonstrate improved results, which he has…so far.

The incident is another reason Q wishes he could see Alex’s face, to carefully monitor the tightening of facial muscles, to watch for the twitch at his right eye that means he’s in distress. If he could just find a better vantage point, Q would be able to race downstairs and onto the main floor in time—should the unthinkable happen: another incident; at worst: a confrontation between Bond and Alex when they are both heavily armed. It’s highly negligent on his part to casually observe his lovers engage in a tense shooting competition, but Q doesn’t see an alternative. Surely, he can’t turn to M and casually mention: _By the way, I’ve been engaged in inappropriate relations with two of my agents and we may have to stop a massacre._

He comforts himself with the flimsy mantra that these men are specially trained agents, highly professional, and most importantly: British. Englishmen are proud, but they loathe a crude public display. As furious as they are, as much as they hate each other, they won’t make a scene by doing anything uncouth. He hopes.

First up, 9mm target practice. Bond is a surgeon with a 9mm, and he unsurprisingly places his shots in precise clusters, all in kill zones: the heart and head. Alex fairs decently, though the last round features a few stray shots that entirely miss the black silhouette. Q frowns, closely watching Alex walk to the metal cart. He seems all right, but it’s difficult to see from his position. There may be a tightening of the shoulders; a stiffening of his stride, but he can’t be sure. Alex has a somewhat robotic way of carrying himself anyway. It makes figuring out if he’s distressed that much more difficult.

Next, the .45s, followed by .22 long rifles and the .32s. In between each volley, the riddled sheet automatically glides backwards to the end of the lane where it is replaced with a fresh target by an agent, who presses a button to send them whirring back to the fixed spot. To Q’s dismay, Alex’s performance gradually declines as the exam goes on, until he entirely misses the sheet during the last handful of shots.

“Shame,” Tanner sighs, “Wonder what got into him.”

Q can’t answer. Paralyzed, he watches Alex slowly walk to the cart and set down the .32. He pauses there, touching and rubbing his forehead. “We should stop the test,” Q gasps.

Tanner looks over at him, surprised. “Why?”

“They still have the long guns portion,” M correctly notes.

Q can’t explain. There’s no time. When he looks down to the floor, Alex is staring into the next lane, watching Bond fire his .32. The earmuffs prevent him from hearing anything besides the stifled _bang…bang…bang_. His gaze is laser-focused, narrowed to the shadowy figure of his mock target. He won’t see. If Alex attacks him, he won’t see it coming. And to his horror, Alex removes his earmuffs and leaves them on the cart, suddenly walking towards Bond.

Q jumps to his feet as Tanner says, “What in the world is he—”; Bond turns to deposit the (now empty) .32 onto the cart, but Alex is standing there instead, and Q sees the flash of surprise before Alex punches Bond hard enough to knock him off his feet and skid across the floor, the empty gun flying from his grasp and sliding out of sight. M and Tanner shout in surprise and Q darts from the room, veering right and shouldering open the stairwell door. It’ll be faster than the lift, he thinks, thundering down the steps, heart hammering, sick with fear that maybe one of Alex’s guns is still loaded. _Please, please_ , he thinks, sprinting down the hallway and shoving open the range’s door in time to see a group of agents desperately attempting to restrain Alex. Bond has climbed to his feet, and two men are also gripping his arms, perhaps afraid of a retaliatory attack.

“Enough!” Q shouts, jarred by how his voice thunders in the cavernous space. Alex immediately stops struggling and Bond looks over his shoulder. There’s already a mouse developing under his right eye. “You’re done. You’re both done for today.” He doesn’t care if M censures him. He’s making the executive decision to send both men on their separate ways.

“That’s it?” Bond laughs, “He attacks me and you’re putting him in time out?”

“You’re a pig!” Alex accuses and Q is seized by panic, momentarily believing that Alex is about to spill all their sordid secrets in front of everyone, including M.

“Shut up,” Q growls, emphasizing each word to demonstrate how serious he is. Obediently, Alex’s mouth closes, but his chest heaves and nostrils flare as he pants for breath. “009, you leave first. 007, wait here and you’ll leave in five minutes. You both need to cool down.”

The agents escort Alex from the range, and Q dismisses the other men with the uttered excuse that he wants to debrief with Bond about the ordeal, but once they’re gone, he leans over and snarls, “You deliberately provoked him.”

“You do understand who the victim is in this situation…?”

“ _James_ ,” he seethes, leaning closer to him, voice pitched low, “You know his history. You knew he would react that way.”

Bond shrugs, reaching up to gingerly touch his eye. It’s red with a blossoming ring of purple. “He had no qualms parading those little love bites in front of me…”

“It’s _different_ ,” Q sighs, exasperated and sick with worry. _Alex_. “That was cruel,” he adds.

Bond looks at him, gaze surprised, perhaps slightly wounded. “All’s fair, dove.”

His cavalier attitude and the use of the pet name are a lethal cocktail. “I know what you’re doing,” he spits, dipping down so Bond will be forced to look into his eyes, “You’re chasing him away so that it’ll just be you and me again, and then you’ll leave me as soon as the next Madeleine walks into your life.”

The man’s eyes widen in hurt, but also perhaps amazement that Q, the master of professionalism, is bringing this up when they’re at MI6 (and displayed in front of M), not that their superiors can hear them. For all they know, Q is dressing down Bond for other reasons.

“I’m not—”

Q throws up his hand. “I wouldn’t expect you to admit it. That’s hoping for too much,” he snarls, turning and storming from the range.

He’s not interested in hearing Bond’s response. All he can think about is finding Alex.

 

* * *

 

Q locates him in the Double O locker room, seated at the end of a long bench. He’s unzipped the jumpsuit, but left it bunched around his waist and is leaning forward with elbows on knees, hands clenched, and head bowed. As Q crosses the room, walking towards him, he can see the man is still breathing heavily. Hearing footfalls, he looks up, an array of emotions flashing across his face: relief, immediately followed by crushing sadness when he recalls the reason for Q’s visit—everything he’s done. 

He quietly stands in front of the man, struggling to compose himself, though he really wants to cry and ask Alex what he’s done—why he’s thrown away all his hard work. “Do you remember what happened?” he begins, reverting to his role as quartermaster, believing it to be essential that he at least establish an understanding of the basic facts for when M interrogates him later. If he comprehends Alex’s mind frame, it’ll be easier to defend him in future meetings, perhaps even saving the man’s job.

“Yes,” Alex flatly responds, staring at his hands.

“Why did you do it?”

Alex’s head remains bowed, but Q can see him wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, repeating the previous claim: “He’s a pig.” Q sighs and says he’ll need a better reason that that, to bring to M and Tanner later, and Alex looks up at him. His eyes are wide and shining with unshed tears. “He disrespected you. Why can’t you see that?”

Arms crossed, Q takes a step backwards to glance around the locker room, and also to collect himself. The problem is, he does see it, but he doesn’t care. He’s never cared about debasing himself for Bond. “There are elements at play here that you are not aware of…” he begins.

“Why are you defending him?” Alex interrupts, voice raising. Q stops and looks at him. He’s never heard the man shout before, and Alex’s file indicates he always speaks in a reserved monotone unless he’s extremely agitated. The only instance he could find of him completely losing control was the gun range incident. Q tries calmly telling him to lower his voice, but it’s like Alex doesn’t hear him. “You said you liked me. Was that true?”

“Yes,” he hisses, casting a frantic look to the doors. Anyone could walk in at any moment: Tanner, M…

“Then why did you—” Alex can’t even finish the thought. He swallows thickly and Q realizes the man is trying to fight back tears. “Why are you seeing him?”

“There are things going on that you don’t know about,” Q desperately explains, thinking of Bond’s trauma, the hunted look in his eyes when he’d realized that he had attacked Q in his sleep. “I’ve known him for years. I’m all he has, Alex…” _I love him so much that it nearly destroyed me_.

“No, it’s not right,” he says, shaking his head, quickly standing. Q takes a step backwards, just in case. “He’s a selfish man and he treats you poorly.”

A man like Alex sees the world in black and white. In his literal mind, Q is good and Bond is bad, but the truth (as is always the case) is considerably more complicated. Bond has been ignorant of Q’s needs, but he would also raze an entire city if Q asked him to.

He sucks in a deep breath, extending a hand with palm facing Alex, and uses his most soothing tone: “I need you to calm down. I’m going to M’s office to fight for your job.”

“My job,” Alex laughs joylessly, “Do you even know what I’ve done for these people? What I’ve created? And he…he gallivants across the globe, leaving a path of destruction in his wake, and they give him a promotion. After all the improvement I’ve shown, and they’re going to sack me over _him_? I don’t want their job. I won’t watch him leer at you.”

“You don’t mean that,” Q quietly replies, arms hanging limply at his sides. “I’m not going to let you throw away your career.” Defeated, Alex collapses back to the bench. Q wants to fetch him a blanket or his clothes—something to cover himself. He must be cold now that the adrenaline is wearing off. “I know you hate me right now, but I care about you too much to allow you to sabotage yourself, Alex.”

“I don’t hate you,” he replies, brows arched in alarm.

That’s worse, isn’t it? After everything he’s done, Alex still cares for him. Half-naked, practically quivering in agonized vulnerably, Q can’t even bear to look at him. His gaze drops as he clears his throat. “I’m going. You should dress and go home for the remainder of the day.”

He forces himself to walk away then, across the locker room, through the door and straight to M’s office.

 

* * *

 

The version of events he tells Tanner and Q is that the shooting exam incident was the culmination of a typical Double O pissing contest. A professional rivalry gone astray. This story is in keeping with Tanner and M’s understanding of who the Double Os are: machismo, fierce, driven by adrenaline. Q insists there’s absolutely no reason to believe Alex will repeat the behavior—that indeed he’s improved by leaps and bounds in recent weeks—and M is quick to agree with him. 

Just as M has always been content to believe that Alex is progressing swimmingly at MI6.

His readiness to look past the indiscretion interests Q. He remembers Alex’s words about how much he’s done for MI6.

“May I ask, sir, what project 009 has been working on?”

M offers one of his tight-lipped smiles, a signal meaning: _Fuck off. Classified_. “I’m afraid that’s need to know, Q.”

Years of being the only fresh-faced savant in a roomful of decrepit senior officials have taught him how to dig for information while giving the appearance of knowing his place. He smiles and nods, uttering, _of course_ , then adds: “Must be quite extraordinary if you’re willing to forgive him for laying out MI6’s prize Double O.”

Tanner snorts, “In addition to the fact that his mother will kick in the front door if we so much as suspend him.”

Q is still mulling over this new nugget of information when M interrupts in a clipped note of finality: “Write the report up and I’ll sign it. Have it to me by the end of the day, Q.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t see Alex for the rest of the week. When Q emails M with the innocent inquiry where the agent has been—with the excuse that he wishes to continue their social conditioning training—M replies with a truncated explanation that the agent is working on his project. He then tries emailing Alex directly, being mindful to use neutrally-worded inquiries into his whereabouts and future availability to meet and discuss more quiz questions, but the man never responds, and according to Q’s outbox statuses, never even checks the emails. 

Wherever he is, MI6 has him locked up away from any distractions.

Q’s worried, unable to properly concentrate at work and consumed with guilt at home, which is why he races to the door Wednesday night when someone knocks. He badly wants to believe the visitor is Alex, finally freed from the MI6 workroom, but when he opens the door, Bond fills the frame. He’s still sporting the black eye, which actually matches the rest of him: unshaven, rumpled dress shirt, smelling of whisky.

“I’m fine, by the way, since I know you’re so concerned,” he deadpans.

Q sighs, bracing a hand against the doorframe in case Bond tries to step past him into the apartment. “It’s not a good time, James,” he says.

“Your boyfriend packs quite a punch,” he grouses, stepping forward, probably believing he can make it inside through sheer force of will. The sad truth is, he probably could.

He doesn’t move and the agent looks at him, surprised. “James, no,” he sighs, adding a moment later, “Please.” If Bond presses the matter, he’ll cave. They both know it. And Q will hate himself the next morning because he will have betrayed Alex again when he doesn’t even know where the man is—if he’s safe or under duress.

Something in Bond’s gaze softens and he sighs, touching the side of his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says.

Q’s not sure that’s true. “You’re always trouble, you know that?”

The corner of Bond’s mouth curls as he buttons his jacket and turns to walk down the hallway, towards the stairs that will direct him outside into the cold. “You’re not the first to say so.”

 

* * *

 

By Friday, Q is in a near panic. He lies to M and says it’s of the utmost importance he speak with 009 immediately and still his superior dodges the matter. Dark thoughts haunt him: they’ve renditioned Alex, or relocated him, or secretly sacked him in order to avoid the wrath of Alex’s mother, whoever she is. Q, of course, tried to research details on the woman, but strangely all of her files are classified at the highest levels, privy to only M and the Prime Minister, and no hits came back on internet search engines. She’s a ghost. 

He even goes so far as to wander down into the bowels of MI6, searching for the secret room where they have Alex locked away, but turns up empty.

Dreams of chasing Bond have been replaced with nightmares featuring Alex, who is trapped somewhere dark and dank, clawing at a locked door, screaming his name.

Because, while Q is a loyal MI6 servant, he’s also aware that his employer is capable of unleashing unimaginable wrath against its enemies, and should the agency have decided that Alex is a bigger liability alive than dead, he will promptly disappear (his mother be damned), and Q will never get to say how sorry he is.

Bond haunts his stoop again Friday evening, when Q is already halfway through a bottle of red wine, and he sighs at the sound of the buzzer, forehead resting against the door for several seconds, searching for the last vestiges of his self-restraint. He was able to turn away the man the first time, but is unsure he can summon the willpower again. Coherent thoughts sail from his brain the second he looks through the peephole and sees the bowed image. “Oh,” he gasps, hands shaking, fumbling to get the door open because standing in the hallway is not Bond, but Alex. He pulls the man inside, shuts the door, and looks at him. “You’re okay?” he asks, touching Alex’s face, fingertips dusting the fringe from his brow.

Alex blinks. “I’m fine. It’s Friday,” he says, as if that’s any sort of explanation. When Q’s answer is a furrowed brow, he extrapolates, “Our date. Friday night.”

Q slumps against the door and sighs. _Right_. It feels like they made those plans a lifetime ago, before Bond returned and the fight at MI6 and Alex’s breakdown in the locker room. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me anymore, after everything that’s happened.”

Alex responds as though Q has told him a riddle. He cocks his head slightly and frowns, thinking. “But I like you. I don’t like 007. That’s why I hit him.” He peels off his coat and neatly hangs it on a hook beside Q’s jacket and walks into the kitchen to greet the cats. He wanders after the man, feeling numb and heavy as if walking through a dream, and stands beside the counter where the bottle of wine and glass rest. “You drink alone,” Alex observes, crouched on the floor, Babbage and Heisenberg gleefully circling around him. Q understands the impulse.

Q ignores the observation. “Where have you been?” he asks, voice trembling. Alex hears the emotion and looks up curiously. “No one would tell me—I thought…Where have they been keeping you?”

“In my lab. You’re not allowed to visit. I asked.”

“Why didn’t you call me after work?”

“I have a cot in the lab. I’ve been sleeping there,” he remarks, as though this is a normal arrangement. “My cellphone doesn’t work in the basement.”

He gropes around for the stool and sits down heavily. “What are you working on?” Q knows the project is classified, but also believes Alex will tell him regardless. Instead of answering, Alex fishes a small wrapped box from his back pocket and places it on the counter. When Q simply stares at it, Alex slides it closer to him. “More gifts?” he asks, wondering if it’s another present for the cats. Maybe the man thought to buy them each a gift. Alex simply watches him, waiting, and so Q picks it up and tears off the paper, lifting the top off the white box. Inside is a USB drive. “What is this?” he asks, extending the box.

“It’s for you,” Alex cryptically replies.

Warily, Q rises and walks into the parlor where his personal laptop is open and resting on the coffee table. He plugs in the USB drive and double clicks on the icon when it appears on screen. The couch dips beside him and Q glances to Alex’s profile. The last time he was here, sitting in that spot, they were necking like a couple of teenagers. Reflecting upon the memory, his cheeks warm, and he forces his attention back to the computer. Whatever is on the drive is a massive file, an algorithm of some kind, he sees, as code rapidly scrolls across the screen. But an algorithm for what? Alex is tense and nervous waiting beside him, anxiously anticipating his response as though this is one of their quiz questions.

The program looks like a version of MI6’s facial recognition software, but there is also data monitoring online search words, broken into millions of demographics beyond the usual age ranges and gender divisions. As he explores, Q realizes Alex has constructed a gigantic map of sorts, charting ever possible combination of responses and decisions a person might make for an infinite number of reasons. The scale of the project is vast. It would take him years to comb through all of it, but in a singular moment of icy terror, he comprehends what Alex has done.

“Alex..” he whispers, unable to move.

“What do you think?” the man eagerly prompts, heartbreaking in his naiveté. He’s proud, like a boy showing off his science fair-winning project. Q asks him what he’s done and he responds by launching into a carefully rehearsed explanation of how he wished to prevent the next 9/11 attack or 7th July bombings, and he knew the key to doing so was in interpreting human speech patterns, “Like our games,” he clarifies with bright eyes, “Everything has a pattern, even human languages and facial expressions, and my algorithm can anticipate behavior 99.9% of the time.”

“The end of lies,” Q murmurs.

Alex tilts his head, the soundbite bouncing around inside his ear. “Yes, precisely.”

Q ejects the disk from his laptop. “Does anyone else know about this?” Alex smiles slightly and shakes his head, saying no, he wanted Q to be the first. “Never tell anyone about it, and you must destroy it, Alex.”

The man blanches, smile evaporating, and asks why. Q explains how devastating his invention would be for diplomatic relationships. While it’s true that intelligence agencies wish to dissect the patterns of terrorist cells, MI6 (and every intelligence agency in the world, for that matter), also excessively trade in lies. All governments lie. It’s the only way to maintain order and power. Full transparency and absolute disclosure means chaos. Essentially, Alex has created a million WikiLeaks in a single device.

“But the truth is good,” Alex insists.

Q sighs, “You’re over-simplifying things. It’s not a question of good and evil. Sometimes allies lie to each other…” He gently places the USB drive in Alex’s palm, “Sometimes we hurt the ones we care about. It doesn’t make us bad. That makes us human.”

Alex is quiet for a long time, rolling the drive in his palm, probably tallying all the days wasted inside the lab. “They know I’ve been working on something enormous,” he begins.

“Lie. Say you were working on a facial recognition program, but it wasn’t successful.”

“You don’t understand, Avery…”

Q covers his hand, curling Alex’s fingers around the device. “I realize you toiled over it. I know the loss of time is irreplaceable, but you _must_ understand, Alex: You’re endangering your life if you go public with this. Everyone you know will be endangered. My life will be jeopardized simply because I saw it and I know it exists.”

Alex looks at him disbelievingly. “They would never hurt you. You’re head of Q branch.”

He smiles slightly. “You think that would save me? It’s worse because I understand what you’ve done. I could potentially duplicate it.” The man sighs, collapsing backwards against the couch, perhaps finally accepting his words as true. He’s pale, his gaze far off. “I’m so sorry, Alex,” he continues, “It’s an amazing invention.”

The praise pulls Alex from his grieving stupor. “I made it for you,” he says, and when Q’s brow furrows in confusion, adds: “I started it years ago. I thought it would impress you. You never seemed to notice me when I first became a Double O. I could barely secure my field items from you. 007 was always the priority.”

 _Oh_. Q sighs and slumps back against the couch as well so their shoulders are touching. “I’m sorry,” he says again, meaning for the apology to apply to so much more than just Alex’s project. He’s sorry for everything. It’s only just recently occurred to him that he’s been treating Alex the way Bond has historically treated him—negligently, callously, as though the man is a backup plan instead of tremendously important to him. Q simply hadn’t realized that Alex had developed intense feelings for him. For the first time, Q wonders if he and Bond have more in common than he initially believed. A sort of affection block that makes them impervious to acknowledging romantic intentions.

Alex slides the drive into his pocket. To be destroyed later. He doesn’t want to be there when Alex has to smash his hard labor into a thousand pieces. “I don’t mind,” he says, smiling thinly when Q looks unswayed by his claims, “No, really. It was more the thrill of solving a puzzle. But my mother…” he winces, “She’ll be devastated to learn I failed.”

“Who is she?” Q quietly asks. He doesn’t see a point in keeping secrets anymore, and surely Alex doesn’t either, since he recently waged a battle designed to permanently obliterate lies.

“Her name is Frances. She’s brilliant. Probably should have been a Double O herself, but…” Alex smiles slightly, “The boys club, you know. My father worked at MI6, but never really had a spy’s mind. He didn’t even realize he was surrounded by moles until it was too late. They were both forced out in disgrace, relocated to the countryside, files still classified. And yet, she still has a few powerful allies who allowed me into the Double O program. She thought I could redeem the name Turner.” Here his smile fades. “I’m going to disappoint her.”

“No,” Q says, explaining that he’ll convince M to reschedule his test, maybe concocting a story about the research having overwhelmed him. _He was tired, stressed, stretching himself too thin in service of country_. Something M will buy. Alex will not be forced into retirement. If he can cover dozens of times for Bond, he can figure out how to save another one of his agents.

“The Bond treatment,” Alex says, eyes shining in the way that means he thinks he’s being very clever.

Q looks at him—at the way every inch of him is carefully manicured to emanate respectability. “You’re not a disappointment,” he reiterates.

“I am,” Alex replies dispassionately, as if repeating a well known fact. “I’m not even her real son,” he sighs, casting a weary glance to Q’s stunned face, “We never discuss it, but I know it’s true. My real mother was my nanny and now their cook. Her name is Mary. She was the only one who was ever kind to me. The only one who respected my wishes,” he adds, with a meaningful look, “She called me Alex.”

“Bloody hell,” Q sighs, staring down at the dark fabric of the couch. He doesn’t even know what to say. All of his familial problems pale in comparison to the Turners' dirty laundry.

“Frances knew I was…different. She found me when I was a little boy, alone in our trailer. Mary is a kind woman, but she couldn’t care for a baby on her own. I was three years old, carving geometric patterns into the condensation of a window. I had conquered advanced trigonometry by age eight. She wanted to make me the next great spy—the next Bond. But better. I would spend days locked away in my room, scrawling formulas on the walls, planning for how I would impress MI6 and win back respect for my family.”

Q remembers Alex’s sleeping arrangement at MI6: alone, in the basement, on a cot. The man didn’t think the treatment odd because he was simply reverting back to his early life. He is stunned by the enormity of Alex’s loss—not only is he losing the precious years of work, but destroying the work will also effectively obliterate his family’s chances of redemption.

He softly utters the man’s name again, hand splayed atop his fingers, curling around them and squeezing. Alex gazes down at their hands. “Perhaps it’s time I disappoint her. I’m not her spy.”

“No,” Q agrees, picking up Alex’s hand so he can kiss the warm hills of his knuckles.

Alex sighs, watching him. “I missed you.”

He can’t stand it another second, dropping Alex’s hand for the sake of gripping his shoulders and kissing him. He tastes good: like tea and peppermint, and the man makes a desperate noise before grabbing the sides of his face with bruising force. Q gasps, whispering, “It’s all right, I’m all right,” when Alex leans back, afraid he’s done damage. Q is anxious to goad Alex into kissing him again, which he does, this time slowly and sweetly in a way that makes his face feel too warm, his throat too tight. “I’m sorry,” he gasps against the man’s lips, “Alex, I’m sorry.”

Worshipfully, the man strokes his cheeks, pushing the fringe from his brow to kiss Q’s forehead. “I want to try,” he announces, so completely surprising Q that he may stop breathing for a second. _You’re sure_? he asks and Alex nods, his smile tender and shy.

And though he is utterly unworthy, Q isn’t about to turn down the offer. They relocate to the bedroom where the fresh sheets and neatly made bedding are waiting. Q had to shoo the cats out of the room and close the door behind them (then assure Alex they’ll be okay sleeping in the living room). There’s a moment of awkward silence where they look at one another, and then Alex proceeds to wander around his bedroom, looking at the various bric-a-brac: a standing dresser, an ancient armoire, his desk with textbooks, field manuals, a movie ticket stub, his work laptop, a notebook to jot down idle thoughts; the large plush chair in the corner where he reads sometimes, and finally the bed and side table with lamp of colored glass and pull chain. Alex has never been in his room before, and Q knows he’ll need a moment to adjust to the new environment.

The man sits on the edge of his bed and inhales deeply. “You just had the sheets laundered.”

His ears warm as he scans the words for hidden meaning. It’s true that he’s just had them washed, after a night of passion with Bond, but he doesn’t think that’s what Alex is alluding to. He has a sensitivity to smells, and is simply observing the presence of detergent particles. He stands near the door, considering Alex sitting on his bed, hands neatly folded on his lap. It feels right to give him one last chance to back out of this: “You sure you’re not hungry? I could order us food. We haven’t even had dinner.”

“I’m not hungry. Are you?”

“No,” he quietly admits. Alex just looks very young and earnest waiting for him in his socked feet, shining eyes taking in every detail of Q’s room as if they are all precious, and the subjects of his frequent speculative daydreams.

This is so different than his time with Bond that he’s suffering from vertigo.

Though there has been a copious amount of agony stemming from him treating Alex the way Bond treated him, there is one upside in that Q now finds himself holding the reins of power. It’s up to him to navigate the waters and guide Alex through the dark. He begins unbuttoning his shirt, watching Alex, closely monitoring his reactions to see if he should keep going or stop. This feels like the safe way to begin things—placing the ability to terminate the intimacy entirely in Alex’s hands. The man stills, completely fixated on Q as he slides out of the dress shirt, allowing it to drop by his bare feet. “Okay?” he asks and Alex’s head minutely dips in a single nod.

“You’re…” Alex probably doesn’t realize he never finishes the thought. He’s too busy staring, as if hypnotized.

Q smiles slowly, next moving to unfasten his trousers and slide them from his hips. For now, he leaves on the briefs, not wanting to completely overwhelm Alex. “Okay?” he breathes, slowly crossing the room to stand in front of him, his fingers gently running through Alex’s hair, working the follicles free from the pomade. Alex mutely nods, slender fingers grasping his hips and squeezing.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Alex murmurs.

His mouth finds Q’s lower abdomen, hot and wet as he kisses the flesh, and he inhales sharply, thinking he knows exactly what Alex means. The man’s cheek grazes his crouch and Q’s cock twitches in interest. But Alex leans back, probably never intending to swallow the length because it simply hasn’t occurred to him. Q is still cradling his head and uses the leverage to tilt back Alex’s crown so he can kiss him again. His hands cup Alex’s cheek, sliding down his chest, and then back up to fondle the buttons of his shirt. When they separate, Q suggests: “Let’s undress you, hm?” To which Alex tentatively nods. A joint effort—Q popping open french cuffs as Alex undoes the front buttons with quivering fingers, Q easing the fabric from his broad shoulders. “There we are,” he sighs, when Alex is finally shirtless in his bed.

“I’ve never…” he begins, not finishing, looking to Q with wide eyes for help.

“I know,” he soothes, cupping his shoulders and kneading them. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of you.”

Q quickly kneels in front of him, perhaps too suddenly because Alex jerks back a bit as if frightened. He makes a soothing noise, stroking the man’s thighs through his slacks. “I’m just taking them off. Nothing else,” he promises and Alex visibly relaxes. _Sorry_ , the man reflexively apologizes. “We’ll stop whenever you want to,” Q recommits, fingers unfastening Alex’s trousers, pulling them over his lifted hips and tossing them aside. “Tell me what you want to do next.”

“I want to kiss you again,” he requests, so Q joins him on the bed, barely hitting the mattress before the man grips the side of his face and dives forth.

Q laughs, delighted by the enthusiasm, pressing teasing little kisses to Alex’s smiling mouth as he leans backwards until fully horizontal upon the mattress. Alex is quick to catch on, draping atop him for the sake of pursuing the embrace. The man is heavy pressing into him, an exquisite feeling, his lips and tongue plundering divinely in a way that both surprises and enormously pleases Q. Maybe Alex won’t need his hand held through this after all. Q moans, wiggling to free his legs and wrap them around Alex’s waist.

Separated by only the flimsy barrier of their pants, Q feels the man’s growing excitement, and hears it in the forms of desperate moans and hitched breaths. His hearts swells with empathy. He can’t imagine being Alex’s age and only just connecting with his body’s sexual desires. When Q was a sex-crazed teenager, he would lay belly-down on his mattress and grind his erection into the sheets until he came. He imagines Alex finds himself in a similar position right now, except with a willing, writhing body beneath him.

His hand worms its way between their pelvises, grazing the hard outline of Alex’s cock, whispering, “Shh, let me,” against the man’s begging mouth saying he’s close. He’s afraid of coming too quickly, but is only fighting the inevitable. Fingers dip beneath the waistband and furl around his hard length, only tugging a handful of times before Alex bucks atop him and suddenly stills. His fingers come back warm and sticky.

“I’m sorry,” Alex murmurs into his neck

Q’s turns into his sweaty temple and kisses it, “Stop apologizing. We have all night.” He offers a beguiling smile and reaches to the bedside table where there are tissues for cleaning up. He leaves the balled up kleenex on the table. “You can have me as many times as you like,” he adds, leaning up to kiss him again.

“I want you to…” Alex says, being unable to finish, looking timid and spooked, his gaze imploring.

Eyes widen behind their lenses. _Oh_. “You’re sure? It would be easier if—”

“I know, but I’ve been…thinking about it,” he confesses, ears red in embarrassment, a timid smile curving his lips.

A smile breaks across his face. 009, actively fantasizing for years about his quartermaster buggering him. How scandalous. “Cheeky,” he teases, kissing Alex’s curved mouth, “I won’t turn down the offer, but you have to do things my way.” Meaning glacial speed and a zealot’s approach to preparation.

Alex agrees and Q climbs off the bed to fetch the lubricant and condoms. When he’s standing at the side of the bed, he realizes Alex is looking at him. The man has rolled onto his back, an arm tucked behind his head, fingertips of his free hand ghosting his chest, where there is a delicious dusting of hair (Q has always preferred his men to be visibly masculine; James ridiculously still shaves his chest). “May I see you?” he asks, and it takes Q a moment to realize the man is requesting to see him nude.

Doing this part sober is new and a bit unnerving. Suddenly, Q is keenly aware that Alex is muscular and gorgeous, and Q’s physique is often uncharitably described as _scrawny_. Still, it’s up to him to project confidence in this situation, so he hooks his fingers beneath the waistband and pulls down the briefs, stepping out of them so he’s standing completely nude for Alex to observe. “You’re beautiful,” Alex sighs, as if having received confirmation on a long-held theory. Q smiles, leaning towards him, first his right knee and then the left finding the mattress, kissing Alex, pushing him backwards to the bed.

His hands are large and warm on Q’s spine, grazing the flesh, reverently exploring in a way that makes Q’s eyes burn, so he closes them. “Wait,” he whispers, removing his spectacles and setting them aside before they continue necking. Naked and grinding against Alex ensures he’s hard within moments, the man in a similar state judging by the bulge jabbing Q in the hip. “I’m going to start with my fingers and we’ll see how that feels.”

Alex offers a tentative nod as he slides the man’s briefs off his sinewy legs. The hair tapers at his belly, leading to the dark follicles between his legs and generous length. Q would like to dive between his thighs and swallow his cock, but knows such aggression might frighten Alex. Instead, he strokes his knees and smiles at him. “Okay, on your back,” he encourages, attempting to keep his breathing deep and even as he watches a naked Alex sprawl out before him. He’s truly breathtaking: the perfect combination of masculine and beautiful, completely unaware of the effect he’s having on Q because he’s so consumed by awe gazing back at him.

 _I’m nothing_ , Q wants to say _, I can’t hold a candle to you._ He wets a finger with the lubricant and presses Alex’s thighs open with a free hand. “Hold your legs up…just like that,” Q instructs, heart giving a happy skip when he sees Alex fully exposed for the first time. It isn’t until he attempts to touch him that Q fully understands the gravity of their situation. His hand eases forth, prepared finger skimming across Alex’s entrance, and the man jolts upwards, almost smacking his skull against the headboard. Q remains kneeling, frozen, eyes wide. “Are you all right?”

Alex exhales sharply through his nose, briefly covering his eyes. “Yeah, I….Can we please stop for a moment?” he stammers.

“Yes,” Q says quickly, drying off his hand with another tissue. “Alex, it’s okay,” he soothes, sitting beside him and stroking his hair, pressing a kiss to his blushing cheek.

But it seems the more difficulty Alex encounters, the tenser he becomes, which makes sex impossible. They try twice more—just working on Q getting a finger inside him—but it doesn’t work. Q can tell he is crestfallen, but instead of quitting, pulls on his briefs and slips out of the bedroom to draw Alex a hot bath. Perhaps stepping outside the bedroom for a bit will help him relax. He watches the man submerge into the steaming water and then sits on the floor beside him, fingertips idly skimming across the surface. They consider one another in the quiet.

“You never had this sort of problem with him,” Alex says, resigned and sad, his chin just above the water’s surface.

“It’s not a problem,” Q corrects, “We’ll figure it out.” He ignores the reference to Bond. Just as he didn’t want to think about Alex when he was rolling in the sheets with James, he can’t bring himself to think about the other man in this moment.

Alex stares into the water for a moment where his naked figure is distorted by the light reflecting off the surface and the occasional ripple. “Like our puzzles,” he says.

“Yes, exactly,” he encourages, reaching to brush a wet strand of hair from Alex’s brow.

He doesn’t know why, but soon he’s sharing details of his life that no one knows—not even Bond. Maybe Alex and his lack of filter are rubbing off on him. Q tells him that he shouldn’t feel embarrassed because sex was difficult for him at first too. In many ways, it still is. He always drinks before sex. He has never had sex sober. “Until now,” he adds, smiling slightly. Alex asks him why and he shrugs. “Not sure. Nervous, maybe. Insecure. I can’t turn my mind off during, and it’s a way to help me relax so I can just focus on my body instead of work or the parts of my appearance I’m insecure about.”

“Because you’re brilliant. Always thinking,” Alex says, choosing the most positive analysis of Q’s past experiences, “Me too.”

“So maybe that’s part of it. Try not to worry when we’re in the bedroom again. Just focus on what you’re feeling,” he adds, with a cheeky smirk, “You certainly don’t have to worry that I’m judging your appearance, since you’re fit.”

Alex almost smiles and nods slowly, considering the advice. “Be present,” he summarizes. Heisenberg pads into the bathroom and inquisitively stares up at Alex in the tub. She hops onto her hind legs, white paws balanced on the tub’s lip and stares at Alex and the water with wide eyes. The man gazes back at her, then to Q. “I wish you could come in here with me.”

Q grins. “We’d slosh water everywhere. Heisenberg wouldn’t be very happy.”

“Then we shan’t try,” he agrees, leaning closer to the cat so she can delicately sniff at his wet nose.

 

* * *

 

Alex dries off, wraps the towel around his waist, and returns to the bedroom with Q. As they’re seated on the bed, thighs touching, Q reminds him: “We don’t have to do anything. I like when we kiss." 

The man dips closer to him, tip of nose and lips grazing his cheek. “I want to,” he insists, “I’ve thought about you for so long. I’m sure I want to try…with you.”

Q turns to him, their mouths pressing together, Alex easing him onto his back. This part feels natural for them: the way Alex fits between his legs, how easily the towel falls off his waist, and Q is able to shimmy out of his briefs. It’s everything that comes next that has Q’s heart pounding against his ribcage. He rolls them so that Alex is pinned to the bed, smoothing a hand down the man’s flank when he instinctively tenses, as though soothing a spooked stallion. Leaning back, Q glances down at the tangle of their bodies, and means to give Alex another opportunity to pause, but the man follows him, swooping up with a hungry mouth to kiss him again.

Which he interprets as consent, cascading downwards, carving a warm, wet path down Alex’s body until he’s kneeling between his legs. He swallows him, sucking hard, prepared for the moment when Alex thrusts his hips up with a broken cry, fingers too rough when they snatch at his hair. Desperate, clinging, but Q closes his eyes and breathes, once more grateful he has removed his glasses so they won’t be crushed in the muscular vise of Alex’s thighs. He gropes for the tube of lubricant, wetting his fingers as he draws back, only to dive back down again. Alex throws back his head, a guttural grunt escaping his throat, and Q sees the moment his muscles relax. He slips a finger inside, cheeks hallowed, sucking him in reward when Alex gives a gasp of surprise, but his body finally yields to the invasion.

A glance up the sweaty, heaving plain to Alex’s face: glassy eyes, a look of amazement, but he hasn’t said to stop, so Q bobs his head, just waiting for another distraction (in the form of Alex thrashing, a hand sailing upwards to grasp at the top of the headboard), to sink digit number two inside. He works him open gently, scissoring the fingers as he sucks, knowing from the tightening of the sac between his legs that Alex will come again very soon—and that’s all right—since he planned for that eventuality.

He curls the digits in a come-hither gesture, pressing into Alex’s prostate, and nearly chokes on the man’s prick when his hips jolt off the bed. Another hoarse bellow, and this time when he glances up the bed, Alex is staring back at him in amazement. _A sensitive prostate, then_. Good news. For some blokes, it’s like you’re poking them in the arm, but this will feel good for Alex, and Q’s heart swells at the thought. _You’re lucky_ , he wants to tell him. He alternates sucking hard with massaging Alex internally, and in moments the man is clinging to the back of his skull, chanting his name, and then the warm burst against his tongue.

Q slides off him and kisses his thigh, just above a small, dark mole. He gazes at it for a moment, wondering how many people know Alex has it, or if he’s the first, like a pioneer hiking across untouched wilderness. “Well done,” he smiles at a very flushed Alex. The man is panting for breath, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow, but his smile is sweet, dopey, relieved. They’ve done it. They’ve come this far, which means they’ll be able to do the rest.

“I read an article…about what it would be like, but it didn’t prepare me.”

“No,” Q agrees, “You have to feel it to know.”

He’s been hard for what feels like ages, but doesn’t want to rush things, so Q takes his time rolling on the latex and spreading the dollops of lubricant along his length. With his free hand, he massages Alex’s firm stomach, palm sliding up his chest, finger lightly raking through the hairs until the man’s eyes focus and he nods. “I’m ready,” he says, thighs spreading, expression determined, but Q knows he’s nervous.

“When you say stop, we stop,” Q reminds him, bracing over his supine figure for the sake of kissing him again.

Alex surges upwards, mouth frenzied, pulling Q to him like he’s a life raft. The passion is surprising, unnerving, and makes Q’s heart ache. He doesn’t want to pull away from him, so instead lays atop the man, stroking his side, allowing his hips to align against the swell of his rear. His length slides between Alex’s spread cheeks, teasing the entrance, until Q feels Alex hardening between their bodies. _An advantage of inexperience_. Q knows this is Alex’s first sexual encounter, but he’s also beginning to wonder how regularly the man masturbates—if at all. Now that he’s shed his repression, the ravenousness oozes from every pore. 

Aroused and warm from his previous orgasms, his muscles relax just enough for the head of Q’s cock to ease inside without any great resistance. Alex grunts into his mouth and Q splays his hand atop his heart, motoring the wild pounding. His hips push forward, Alex opening to him until he’s fully buried. He lays atop him, kissing Alex’s cheeks and brow as the man moans, perhaps still dazed that he’s overcome his worst fears and has reached this moment. “Okay?” Q gasps, amazed he still has the power to speak. It’s been so bloody long since he’s topped (and truthfully, even then, he’s only done it once before). He is not a practiced expert, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint not to climax the instant Alex’s muscles clench.

Alex can only nod and Q kisses his cheek again, face turning when the man raises his head imploringly, kissing him as he experimentally thrusts his hips—more a languid drag and push, but it draws the sweetest moan from Alex’s throat that he has to break away and suck in a deep, calming breath. _Easy. Go slow_. The man’s hands grope along his back and rear, demanding that he keep moving, fingers dragging through his mane, anchoring him so Alex can kiss his mouth. Sober, the entire ordeal is utterly overwhelming and profoundly moving in a way that Q did not anticipate, especially once they find the correct rhythm where Alex is wet, lax, and open to him, and the thrusts are deep and steady. A broken groan fills his ears and Q barely recognizes his own voice.

It is not the frenzied rutting he experienced with Bond. This is rich and transcendent, and he wonders if this is that thing _lovemaking_ people are always raving about. Q wouldn’t know. He’s never done it before but this feels different, and he wishes it could go on forever, although of course it cannot, especially when they are both novices.

Alex’s breathing changes, taking on a jagged edge, and Q assists by reaching between them to grasp his cock and stroke it in time with the thrusts. He braces on an elbow to watch Alex’s face: eyes glassy, his swollen mouth opening in the vague, panted warning, “I’m—” And Q nods in understanding, mouth pressed to Alex’s brow. _Go on. Go on, darling_.

Tensing, for the first time in a good way, eyes pinched shut as he comes, and Q’s hips stutter to a stop when he is physically incapable of continuing because Alex is clutching him so tightly. A sensation of warm stickiness between their pelvises. Slowly, the tightness leaves Alex’s face, and his eyes blink open. Dazed. Utterly sated. He tells Q to keep going, so he does, only a dozen or so feverish bucks needed to drive him over the edge. Head bowed, he grunts and then moans, collapsing atop Alex as he comes into the condom.

He lays atop him for what feels like a very long time, Alex’s body a hot furnace, his arms looped around Q’s torso. Suddenly, the man rolls them, effortlessly, because Alex is stronger than him. He gasps, landing on his back, cock sliding free. Alex’s shining face gazing down at him, eyes illuminated with fondness. “That was good?” he asks, an unsure edge in his voice.

And how to even begin answering that? _Extraordinary. For the first time, I finally understand what all the fuss is about_. But he can’t say that because his muscles are liquid and he’s dim from endorphins. Sleep will visit soon like a warm blanket. “Perfect,” he manages, reaching to cup Alex’s face. They kiss tenderly, slowly, finally unhurried because there is no great question between them anymore. They fit. They’re designed for each other.

He visits the loo to dispose of the condom, urinate, and wash up a bit, and then it’s Alex’s turn. When they’re clean, they fall into bed together, a mess of knotted limbs, Q’s head cradled to Alex’s chest.

They sleep for ages.

 

* * *

 

He awakes to something soft flicking his forehead. Heisenberg’s tail. She’s curled on Alex’s pillow like a furry halo around his head. Alex is awake, brow furrowed, trying to discern what’s happening. “It’s your girlfriend,” Q yawns, cheek pressed to a solid shoulder, gaze teasing. “How do you feel?" 

“I feel…” he begins, trailing off, considering him as he searches for a word to encompass the magnitude of it. Q knows the feeling, “Very good.”

Since they decided to forego dinner last night, Q volunteers to make them some omelets. Fortunately, his refrigerator contains enough elements of civilization to make that task possible, and Alex stands at the balcony window while he cooks, cup of Early Grey cradled in his hand, gazing at the cityscape as Heisenberg and Babbage worshipfully rub against the fabric of his trousers.

“It smells of smoke,” he observes. Q doesn’t respond, instead focusing his attention on plating their omelets. _Bond_. Lingering smoke particles from when he visited Q’s balcony, undetectable to the likes of him, but Alex has an increased olfactory acuity—Hyperosmia, it’s called. When the food is prepared, Alex gradually makes his way to the kitchen and they eat quietly for a handful of minutes. Or rather, Q eats. He notices Alex is instead pushing the food around on his plate, face thoughtful. “I knew when I saw the scratches on his back,” he begins. Q slowly sets down his fork to look at him. “I want you to know what I didn’t wasn’t a chauvinistic display of ownership. I was angry he would risk exposing you like that, but I don’t think I own you. This isn’t like the car.”

Q blinks. “The Aston Martin?”

“Yes, it’s not like when Bond took my car. I don’t think you’re like the car,” Alex repeats, extremely earnest that Q understands this point, as if he’s been worrying about it for quite some time.

“I know,” Q soothes, reaching to grasp the man’s hand.

Alex looks at their hands. “Okay. Good,” he nods, “I don’t like Bond, but I like you. I want to keep seeing you, if you’ll allow it.”

He smiles slowly, turning Alex’s hand so it’s palm-up, fingertips tracing his life line. “I want that too.”

The tension visibly washes from him, lips curling in a pleased little smile, and he nods, for the first time digging into the omelet with genuine gusto.

When he’s standing at the door and preparing to leave, Q quietly watches him: the way he meticulously buttons his overcoat and straightens the knot of the tie, getting himself sorted before reentering the real world. Q likes the way he feels small in his arms, how he has to lean up against his broad chest to kiss him. His embrace is lulling and reassuring in a way that causes amnesia, scrubbing Q’s brain of the reminder to tell Alex to destroy the drive immediately.

He should have wiped the disk himself. Later, Q will understand the immensity of his mistake.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Complications atop more complications

Despite his best efforts, Q branch’s engineers still have social lives, so the few days before the holiday break (even though all employees were forced to work through the weekend) are especially hectic. Everyone wants to have last-minute matters settled so their desks aren’t spilling over come next week, and Q is the one who has to sign off on every request and complaint. As such, the days before Christmas pass in a blur, and he doesn’t even have a spare moment to debrief with any of the Double Os. No matter, he tells himself, because none of them are in a period of crisis. Alex is, once again, in good standing with M (he performed well during his rescheduled munitions exam), and Bond has actually managed not to cause any waves in more than 48 hours.

Things have been so chaotic, however, that he completely forgets it’s Christmas until accepting one of the free papers from a man’s hand at the tube stop and the grizzled gent remarks, “Merry Christmas, sir,” which is how he knows that it’s time to open the cats’ gift when he returns to his flat. “This is from Alex,” he explains to Heisenberg and Babbage as they bump and nuzzle his hand, highly curious, as he strips the paper. Inside are two small, felt catnip-filled toys (both mice). “Oh dear,” he sighs, tossing the toys to the floor so the cats can attack and roll around atop them like drug addicts in an opium den. Q smirks and snaps a photo with his phone and thinks about sending it to Alex.

He decides against it. MI6 monitors their calls and texts, and besides, he hasn’t seen Alex in days, which means the agency has him locked away, no doubt slaving away through the holidays. But it seems wrong not to say _anything_ to the man on Christmas, so he simply texts: _Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band_ , knowing Alex will understand and any potential monitor will be left baffled.

Q has also completely forgotten about his commitment to join Moneypenny’s family on Christmas and only remembers day-of when he receives a text: _Bring a bottle of wine or my mum will hate you forever_ , and he has to make a mad dash to dress and sprint out the door to the nearest liquor store before he’s late.

Moneypenny is the middle child of three siblings, father deceased, mother very much alive and considerably more chic than Q was prepared for. Her flat is dressed up in stylish furniture with colorful throw pillows and chiffon dressings on the windows, her mother donning expensive scarves and sporting a slick grey shock of hair. “Welcome, Avery,” she greets, which is how Q knows this is going to be an informal gathering—he will be expected to call Moneypenny _Eve_ and refer to all family members by their first names.

Janet and Michael, Eve’s younger sister and older brother, are professional types. Janet is in public relations and Michael is an investment banker, a profession Q is so accustomed to hearing as a cover for spies that he spends a good ten minutes attempting to poke holes in the man’s story until he accepts that Michael really does work in finance and is exactly as dull as he seems. Barbara, the family matriarch, was a school teacher for 40 years but retired last year. Q finds this tremendously impressive. He can’t imagine doing anything for four decades, though he’s currently on a course to do just that.

He quickly gleans that Moneypenny’s cover is that she’s a receptionist for the British government, which he supposes is close enough to the truth that he won’t insert his foot directly into his mouth during Christmas dinner. Q learns her cover story is shockingly thin, but that her family doesn’t think the job is remotely interesting enough to make inquiries. “You went to university for foreign policy,” her mothers sighs into a glass of white wine and Moneypenny shoots him a look that screams: _Here we bloody go_.

A pity he can’t tell them that sometimes Moneypenny chases enemy spies across the tops of moving train cars.

He’s struck by the fact that no one has brought significant others to dinner. “All alone on the island of misfit toys,” Michael jokes, and Q would think maybe he was right if either Janet or Michael could be considered interesting enough to be labeled outcasts. The truth is, they’re terribly dull conformists who work too hard to have secured social luxuries such as a spouse and/or children. Janet brags that she hasn’t taken a holiday in three years, and Q is about to judge her before he realizes it’s been even longer since he took a vacation. Actually, he harshly judges work colleagues who use all their sick days. What does that say about him?

At dinner, he tries to imagine where Alex and Bond could be on Christmas evening, but can only draw a blank. He simply doesn’t know because he deliberately didn’t make plans with either of them for that is a step in the direction of solidifying…whatever the bloody hell he’s doing with them. Maybe it would force him to choose between having his cake and eating it, which is why he’s avoiding commitment like the black plague. Barbara asks him about his personal life and he dances around the issue, just as he delicately circumvents details about his “job” as an engineer. _How do you know Eve?_ she asks at one point, to which Moneypenny deadpans, “Yoga,” and Q is very proud that he maintains a sober expression.

Afterwards, they help with the washing up and then duck outside so Q can get some fresh air and Moneypenny can sneak a cigarette. “I never do this. Only on holidays. You know how it is, with family,” she says, wrapped in an emerald coat, breathing in the smoke. He wouldn’t dream of judging her. Instead, his arms cross and he looks up at the night’s sky, aware she’s curiously watching him. “I heard some interesting rumors about a shooting range incident.”

Q sighs and glances at the back door. The kitchen window is illuminated, the sounds of Barbara and Eve’s siblings readying dessert and tea emanating through the glass. He feels, if he doesn’t share what’s happened with someone, his head is going to implode. Q tells her everything: about the affairs and the subsequent fight between the Double Os—how he doesn’t know what he’s going to do about the mess he’s made. The only part he keeps to himself is about Alex’s invention, purely because he doesn’t want to endanger Moneypenny by infecting her with the knowledge.

“007 _and_ 009,” she remarks, brows arched high, seeming quite impressed, and adds a moment later with a cheeky grin: “Poor 008…”

“Please be serious,” Q sighs, looking at her earnestly, “I really don’t know what I should do.”

“Why do you have to _do_ anything?” she asks, luxuriating in an especially deep drag that leaves Q waiting for her to explain. Moneypenny rolls her eyes on the exhale: “Have either of them revealed an ultimatum? Asked you to choose one or the other?” Q shakes his head. “Right, so why choose at all? You do know what a polyamorous relationship is, yeah? They’re sort of Bond’s specialty.”

He scoffs. Of course he knows what a polyamorous relationship is—he just never imagined a world in which he might participate in one. His love life has been such a barren wasteland that the idea of _two_ fit men being attracted to him always seemed impossible. _Please God_ , he used to think _, Just let me have sex again before I die_. Now his cup runneth over.

“Don’t micromanage this to death, Avery,” she advises, snuffing out the cigarette on the wooden stairs' rail, “Please, for all our sakes, just relax and enjoy it. Please?”

He’s about to ask to whom _all our sakes_ applies, but thinks that’s the sort of nosy anxiety against which she’s advising.

 

* * *

 

Alex never returns the text but this time Q knows not to panic. He’s locked away with his calculations over the holidays, so being incommunicado is not unusual. He devotes the weekend to reading and consciously not worrying about Q branch and the engineers’ various requests that still periodically ping the email on his cellphone. He calls his mum and dad to wish them a Merry Merry and then treats himself to a nice, long bath. A Christmas present for himself.

He luxuriates in doing nothing: popping out to a corner bakery to buy some fatty pastries and bringing them back to the flat so he can lazily graze whilst catching up on the ever-growing pile of books in the corner of his bedroom—leisure reading that has absolutely nothing to do with structural engineering—the cats alternating who gets to occupy the real estate of his lap as he scratches behind their ears. Occasionally, one of them will drag Alex’s gift into the room and roll about with it, and Q will set down his book to watch them, wondering what the agent might be doing in that precise moment.

Mostly, the holiday break passes without fanfare, right up until Sunday evening when someone raps upon his door. He’s considering not answering and pretending that he isn’t home, the plan solidifying further when peering through the peephole and seeing the visitor is Bond. Two things stop him from slinking back to his bedroom: Bond will, no doubt, have noticed his shadow under the doorframe, and secondly, the man looks dire: stubble, bloodshot eyes, rumpled collar. With a heavy sigh, he opens the door to get a closer look at him.

“Am I allowed inside or are you still engaged in self-flagellation?” he quips, reaching to brace against the doorframe to camouflage the sway of his body. Drunk again.

“I’m just about to go to bed,” he says, quickly adding (when Bond smirks and quirks his brows), “Alone.”

James rolls his eyes and takes a step backwards. “Fine,” he mumbles, reaching to button his jacket’s collar, but apparently does not currently possess the fine motor skills to accomplish such a task because his hands promptly fall away, dipping into pockets. Suddenly, he sloughs the arrogant armor and sighs, “The dreams are bad. I cut myself—”

He can’t even finish the thought because Q pulls him inside. “Where? Are you hurt?”

“No, it’s—I’m fine. Really,” he insists, shedding the jacket to show Q what he means. There are gauzy bandages wrapping his right arm, “I woke up in the washroom and apparently I’d broken a glass and—It was an accident, I wasn’t trying to hurt myself,” he clarifies, unsure in a way that Q knows few people have witnessed.

“You’ve got to see a therapist,” Q spits, furious. He knew this would happen, but James never listens to him.

“You’re right,” the man says, stunning Q. A thin smile, “What can I say? I’m a mess.”

He sucks in a deep breath, and says no, _not a mess_. Bond just needs someone to talk to—someone qualified to unpack such matters—instead of Q. Apparently, he still feels protective of Bond, to the extent that he won’t allow the man to refer to his condition self-deprecatingly. Q tells him to come in and fixes him a cup of tea, hoping it will help him sober up. On his way to the parlor, James nearly steps on Heisenberg’s tail and she hisses at him. “You’re still a charmer, I see,” he mumbles, collapsing in the chair by the balcony door.

Q frowns as he carries over the cup of tea and hands it to him. James really does look awful.

“When was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?” he asks, sitting on the couch’s armrest.

“Cheers,” Bond mumbles, sipping the amber liquid, “Last time I was here, I suppose.”

And even that hadn’t really counted as a full night’s rest. After all, the agent attacked him. Bond must be thinking the same thing because his brow guiltily wrinkles as he considers Q’s ensemble: gingham pajamas, hair wild from an afternoon spent in bed, reading. He must look about sixteen-years-old, which is probably only contributing to the man’s ashamed conscience.

“You’ll stay here tonight,” Q decides.

“No,” Bond solemnly dismisses immediately, shaking his head. Q knows it’s not a ploy judging by how grave he looks.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

He sighs: “Perhaps you should be, dove.”

Q watches him lift the cup to his lips, hand tremor causing little ripples. “Perhaps,” he agrees, “But I’m not, so you’ll stay the night. Maybe we can handcuff you to the bed.”

Predictably, Bond perks up at the offer. “Now you have my attention,” he leers, not even minding when Babbage makes an appearance to rub against his leg.

 

* * *

 

The cuts on Bond’s arm are largely superficial, but he hasn’t bothered to properly clean them, so Q removes the bandages and rummages about the loo for his medical kit and fresh dressings. Bond sits on the closed toilet, watching him move about. “I wish the triage blokes at MI6 looked like you,” he flirts, perhaps testing the waters, sussing out if he’ll get lucky later.

Q shoots a warning look. “I’m just going to use some anti-bacterial cream and wrap it with new gauze. I don’t think you need stitches.” The wounds aren’t bleeding, but the skin around them is raised and an angry red color.

Bond nods, quiet as Q washes his hands, dries them, and then proceeds to rub the cream across the carved ravines. The man clears his throat. “Uh, I wanted to apologize about the shooting range incident,” he glances to Q’s face, so he makes sure to keep his expression neutral because Bond is closely monitoring his reaction. Next, he wraps the clean gauze around Bond’s arm. “I went a bit mad, I’m afraid. For some reason, I became utterly convinced 009 was stealing you from me.” When Q offers an annoyed scowl, he quickly adds: “I know I’ve no right, Q. I’m simply telling you why I did what I did.”

The bruise around his eye has mostly faded, a yellow ring and a purple splotch at the corner are the only remnants of the assault.

He sighs, quietly repacking the medical supplies and storing the kit inside a wooden cabinet by the sink. “I want you to stay the night, but you should know I don’t plan to stop seeing Alex, just as I don’t expect you to stop seeing…whoever else you’re seeing.” He doesn’t know their names, but everyone knows James Bond has a bevy of romantic partners on every continent of the known world. “And I won’t accept any more mad behavior. You’re never to attack or provoke him again, understand?”

Bond reclines against the toilet tank and sighs, but there’s something like admiration gleaming in his eyes. “You expect me to share,” he summarizes.

“Yes,” Q replies, spine straightening, “I shared you for years.” This isn’t payback; it’s just fair. “I had to stand there while you walked away with her, James.”

The playful look vanishes, once more replaced with an expression that he can only describe as regret. “You’re right,” he sighs, bracing on his knees and standing. “I’ve been a wanker. I’m lucky to have you at all.” His hands are large on Q’s hips, turning him away from the sink so they’re face-to-face, practically pressed together in the small space of the washroom. Bond is lavishing him with praise, but he knows it, and allows the effect to wash over him like a warm wave.

“Yes, you are,” he agrees, empowered in the knowledge that he is no longer the pathetic junior chasing at Bond’s heels. It’s nice to be pursued for a change.

Bond smiles affectionately at him, terribly distracting in his rugged handsomeness. There are fine lines around the corners of his eyes, and for the first time Q accepts that Bond is a man aging along with the human race, and while he enjoys dipping his toes in foreign waters quite regularly, perhaps he’s reached a point where the thought of someone waiting at home in London for him is more a comfort than an anchor.

The man pulls him forward by the waist, Q colliding with his chest as calloused hands sail to his face, cupping cheeks so Bond can kiss him. He inhales sharply, mouth opening, a soft moan pouring forth. Q stumbles backwards, Bond chasing with his demanding, rough mouth, the two of them bumping and fumbling their way to the bedroom. James knocks the door closed behind him, causing a small avalanche of books in Q’s former to-read pile.

He reaches to right the mess, but James grabs him again and rips the pajama top clear off his torso, small buttons spraying in every direction. “James!” Q gasps, “Those are _bloody_ expensive,” he growls, even as Bond grabs and tosses him onto the bed.

“I’ll buy you a new pair,” the man grunts, yanking off his pajama bottoms next.

Q forgets to feel cross about it once James is hard and buried inside him, legs draped across the man’s shoulders, Q bouncing across the mattress as James fucks him soundly. Bond stands at the foot of the bed for extra leverage, nearly bending Q in half as he roughly thrusts, a string of profanity exploding from his mouth at the end of each stroke. The man is still mostly dressed, trousers and briefs shoved downwards to bunch around his knees, “Oh my God,” Q gasps at one point, James jostling in his vision as the lenses bounce.

Unlike with Alex, his orgasm doesn’t blossom like a beautiful flower; instead James chases it out of him with all the subtle nuance of a ravenous wolf pursuing its prey.

He climaxes violently, James’ teeth sinking into the meat of his calf muscle. “Ow, fuck,” he laughs, collapsing to the bed, aware that James has come and slipped out of him. He hears the man walking about, probably disposing of the condom in the loo. By his head floorboards creak, followed by the sound of fabric hitting the floor—Bond undressing. The bed dips and he grins when James sprawls atop him, kissing and nipping his neck, “You’re a beast,” he chastises, not really meaning to thwart him.

James is pressing something cool and damp into his hand, and Q looks over to see a wash cloth nestled in his palm. He smirks and uses it to clean off his stomach and chest, which display the residue of his orgasm. Afterwards, he tosses aside the cloth and it lands wetly on the floor. Postcoital, he doesn’t really care about things like cleanliness and tidiness.

They neck for a while, languid now that the frenzy has passed. Eventually, James rolls off and curls up behind him, strong arm looping his waist, and Q reaches for the lamp to pull the chain and cloak the room in darkness. “You’re sure you don’t want to handcuff me?” Bond offers one last time.

“James,” he sighs, “I don’t actually own handcuffs.”

“Oh…” the man replies, breath warm on Q’s neck, perhaps sounding a bit disappointed, “You could use a belt.”

He smirks and brings James’ hand to his mouth and kisses it. “Go to sleep.”

 

* * *

 

Q sleeps so soundly that upon waking his first reaction is confusion. His alarm sounds at 6AM, light gently filtering through the curtains; he grunts reaching for the lamp to turn it on and fetch his glasses. Bond is still asleep behind him, so he turns and gently touches the man’s brow. “Wake up,” he whispers, voice slightly hoarse. No response, so he tries again: “James, wake up. We’ll be late for work.”

Bond’s brow furrows and he grumbles: “Let’s say we’re too ill to come in.”

“Oh, yes. Both of us, shall we? That won’t seem suspicious at all. I haven’t taken a bloody sick day in years,” he says while attempting to peel off James’ arm, which is quite the arduous task given the man is resisting, and finally pulls Q _towards_ him, which is the opposite intent; rolling them both so he’s pinned under him. “Behave yourself, James,” he warns.

Bond grins and whispers, “No” before kissing him.

And Q means to resist, but his body is such a lovely, warm, comforting weight—and James smells so good when he inhales through his nostrils—that Q succumbs and throws his arms around the man’s neck, whimpering into his mouth.

They shag again and Q very nearly misses his morning train. In fact, he has to forego a shower and breakfast just to sprint out of his flat and make it at all—leaving Bond with the explicit orders not to do anything odd or perverted inside his flat _and_ to be relatively on time at MI6. As a Double O, he can waltz in fifteen, twenty minutes late, but as head of his branch, Q absolutely must be on time or it sets poor standards for the rest of his staff, especially because employees adopt lax attitudes post-holiday anyway.

He’s breathless and slightly disheveled arriving at his workstation, but he’s on time. Q throws down his bag victoriously and sheds the jacket, taking a brief moment of vanity to smooth down his hair as best he can. Grooming interrupted by a flustered engineer, who immediately dumps a stack of requests on his desk, and then Q’s off for the day.

Predictably, MI6 is swamped on the first day back after the holidays, but Q is well-rested and stays on top of everything, the reminder of his time with James only interrupting his thoughts once when he tried to sit on a stool by the desk and immediately had to stand because his rear was too tender. He took a moment, pretending to stack some papers so the burning of his face would subside without anyone noticing. _Bloody Bond_.

He doesn’t see James at all throughout the day, but M never fires off an angry email inquiring into his whereabouts, so he assumes the agent must have shown up eventually. Curiously, there’s still been no word from Alex, so he sends an email with M and Tanner CC’d asking when he’ll have a moment to resume 009’s socialization training. M responds within minutes, vaguely answering that 009 is still swamped with his project, which is a top priority, and will be unable to sacrifice his time on other matters. Q stares at the screen for a while, brow furrowed. _Odd_. Even by MI6 standards, Alex’s work schedule is excessive. He worked straight through the holidays and is still at it. And what project? Alex promised to destroy the drive. Unless, perhaps M has him working on something else, but surely Alex would have mentioned that.

 _I’ll only need a few moments_ , he dares to write back.

Another response pops up in his inbox no more than thirty seconds later: _Focus on other matters, Q._

A terse reply, clearly M shutting down the discussion. Tanner doesn’t respond at all.

After that, Q is somewhat distracted the rest of the day, though he comforts himself by believing Alex will be free later in the week. At some point, his superiors must give him a break—at least a few minutes to check in, or call him on his cellphone later in the evening.

Day after day pass with no word from Alex, and by Wednesday Q is desperate for any sort of news. He checks his outbox and Alex hasn’t read any of his recent messages. Things are so dire that he even corners Moneypenny and asks her if she’s heard anything. For some reason, she acts a bit cagey, casting looks over his shoulder as if checking for eavesdroppers. “What is it?” he demands, “What do you know?”

She sighs, arms protectively crossed. “I don’t know anything for certain, but I’ve heard…things,” she says, clarifying when he offers a desperate look, “Something about classified information? I’m not sure. Whatever it is, he really put his foot in it, Q.”

The conversation with Eve scares him enough that he acts out of desperation, walking straight to M’s office and letting himself in even though he doesn’t have an appointment nor has he been summoned (M’s receptionist isn’t at the desk, so he assumes she must have stepped out to lunch). M is alone in his office, seated behind the desk, swiping along an iPad screen. He looks up in surprise when Q appears in the doorframe. “Yes?”

“I’m concerned about 009’s health,” Q begins as he walks across the room and lingers beside the firing squad chair. “I know you claim that he’s working on something that is need to know, but it’s been weeks, and I happen to know for a fact that he’s been sleeping in some isolated room…” Q trails off, wondering if he should make some kind of poignant accusation or request that will serve as the beginning point of negotiations, “I want to see him,” he finally says, deciding that’s the easiest request for M to fulfill.

M removes his reading glasses and leans back in the chair with a squeak of hinges and creak of leather. He looks exhausted and a little impressed. “One moment. Sit,” he instructs while picking up the desk phone and pressing an extension number, “Come to my office, please,” he says into the receiver and then hangs up. They wait in quiet for approximately three minutes before Tanner joins them and perches on a windowsill, the one closest to M’s desk. “Q was just demanding that he be able to see 009,” M says, brows raised as if to ask: _What do you think of that_?

“This is not your purview, Q,” Tanner sighs.

“Yes, it is,” he interrupts, having been prepared to be dismissed in such a fashion, “I am responsible for the well-being of my agents, and I have reason to believe 009 is being asked to maintain an unreasonable schedule. Why is he _sleeping_ on a cot in the basement?”

Tanner frowns and glances to M, which surprises him. Maybe he hadn’t known that part of the arrangement. M holds up his hand. “I admire your commitment to the Double Os, but 009’s future is now entirely out of your hands.” The ominous phrasing makes Q’s throat tighten. He asks why—what’s happened? and M presses his lips together, considering him before answering: “You know what happened, Q.”

The room goes silent, save for an ancient clock on M’s desk that continues to tick.

He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come, so M continues: “Your personal laptop is monitored by MI6 as well. As I’m sure you know, having signed the employee confidentiality agreement, someone with your clearance should have a relatively low expectation of privacy.”

Q does know this. He’s very much aware, but he thought that applied to his work computer. Suddenly, he feels sick. Is his flat bugged? Do they know everything?

“What do you have to say for yourself?” M prompts.

Even though he’s sitting, Q feels faint. What is M asking him to say? Is he referring to Alex’s invention or something more? For some reason, he looks to Tanner who is intensely watching him from his spot by the window. Tanner asks: “009 told us he took the invention to you and you advised he destroy it, is that true?” He nods slightly and Tanner glances to M, “So in other words, a Double O reported to his superior an invention which he believed—with good reason—could endanger MI6. Is that what you’re saying?”

Suddenly, Q understands. He is creating a narrative that saves both Q and 009. In his version of events, 009 is a concerned employee and Q is his responsible superior. He almost regrets ever thinking anything ugly about Tanner.

“Is that what happened?” M asks again.

“Uh, yes,” Q forces out, clearing his throat and nodding.

“I suspected as much,” M says, “You’ve always been loyal to the agency, Q. Maybe to a fault.”

He’s unsure what that means, but doesn’t want to waste time unpacking the comment because he still doesn’t have an answer for the biggest question: is Alex all right? “I understand you have to debrief him, but how long will this take? He didn’t understand what he was doing. He hadn’t thought it through. I could tell from the way he reacted that he hadn’t considered the security threat,” Q rambles, knowing he should stop talking, but he can’t help it. This is the closest he’s come to finding Alex, and he’s afraid if he leaves now, M’s door will close behind him and he’ll never see the man again.

“This is a very serious matter,” M says, any warmth having evaporated from his eyes and tone, “Fortunately, from what we know, 009 didn’t show his invention to a civilian—that would have been an unforgivable transgression—but he still had the file on his person, intact, so the highest echelons will have to be alerted. This isn’t afternoon tea. We need to determine everything 009 knows, with whom he shared the intelligence—”

 _Alex. What have you done?_ “Only me. He said I was the first he showed,” Q interrupts, aware he sounds too eager and desperate. _Too invested_.

Tanner shifts again in his peripheral, and Q can practically feel him telepathically communicating _shut up_ because he sounds like an over-emotional advocate instead of the head of Q branch.

“I should have listened to you before,” M sighs, “You said he was behaving inappropriately and here we are: 009 overstepping yet another boundary.” Q opens his mouth, horrified that he’s watching all of the agent’s hard work unravel before his eyes. Unfortunately, he never gets a chance to speak because M lowers the hammer: “I want you to take a personal day tomorrow. I’ve demanded too much of you by putting you in charge of the hybrid program in addition to your Q branch duties.”

He wants to point out that removing him from Q branch will only ensure he’ll have _more work_ waiting for him when he gets back, but M’s rationale is really a cover. He doesn’t give a toss about Q’s _mental wellbeing_. This is about getting him out of the way for a little bit so he’ll stop asking questions about Alex’s location. The thought makes him feel ill. What are they going to do to him tomorrow?

“Sir, you have to listen to me: 009 truly believed—”

“We know what he believes. He’s been talking to us and we will determine what the next step will be for him,” M says.

Tanner stares down at his crossed arms and the ticking dominates the room again until Q stands on shaky legs to leave.

 

* * *

 

Q feels numb as he leaves MI6 and during the train ride home—leaving in the afternoon instead of rush hour means his car is relatively empty, giving the entire journey an extra surreal layer. His legs are heavy ascending the steps to his flat and he robotically moves about the kitchen in order to feed the cats. Inside the kitchen cabinet is a bottle of wine, which he opens and half empties while the sun is still shining brightly outside. He’s reminded of Alex’s disapproving comment about him drinking alone, and suddenly Q realizes he’s crying. Not crying— _sobbing_ —the tears flowing freely, his chest tightening until it’s difficult to breathe. Another panic attack. He stumbles to the bathroom and sits on the floor, afraid the choked breaths will trigger a coughing fit that will end in retching.

This is all his fault. From the beginning, he’s known MI6 monitors his behavior, and yet he allowed two Double Os into his life in the most intimate way imaginable, and now one of them could die. Q doesn’t want to believe MI6 would do that to one of their own, but the truth is he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the agency and is familiar with the cases in which that very thing happened: an agent betrayed MI6 or unwittingly disclosed highly classified information, and suddenly they were found hanging in their apartment or unconscious in bed beside an open bottle of sleeping pills. Accidents and tragedies that were really murders dressed up to look like whims of fate.

Q has always comforted himself by believing these people were traitors, but he knows Alex is no betrayer. He’s a loyal, brilliant, frequently odd man whose memory makes Q spiral into another round of suffocating sobs. _You can’t be gone. I have too much to tell you_ , he miserably thinks.

The panic attack passes and Q drinks more while sitting on the couch until he falls asleep. He sleeps through the night, wakes late the next morning, and resumes drinking his last bottle of wine. He’ll need to restock soon, but it’s been too recent since he visited his usual sommelier, so he’ll have to find a new liquor store. He’s developed a rotating system so no one realizes how much he drinks, and while it has occurred to him that this is a pretty clear red flag, he can’t begin to consider all that as he attempts to drink away the memory of Alex, and his face, and how he could have saved Alex if he’d just destroyed the flash drive when he had the chance. True, MI6 still would have known he’d accessed the file, but at least it would have looked better than them finding the bloody thing inside Alex’s pocket…

The apartment is dark when Bond touches his forehead. “Q…” he whispers. He rolls onto his back and sighs. His head is pounding and he has no idea what time it is. Actually, he couldn’t really say what day it is either. At some point, he took off his glasses and folded them on the table. “Are you all right? I visited your desk the other day, but they said you went home sick, and then you didn’t come to work today.” _Sick_. Is that what they’ve been saying? He laughs—or means to laugh—but it quickly dissolves into more sobbing. Q coughs even as Bond gathers him into his arms and rights him into a sitting position so he doesn’t begin to gag. “What is it? What’s happened?” the man asks, sounding afraid and predatorily focused, like he always sounds in Q’s ear before a mission.

“They took him,” Q slurs, nearly pitching forward, but James catches him at the last second. Maybe he drank more than he originally thought. The room tilts and everything is a bit fuzzy. Bond is asking him something: _who?_ He’s asking who _they_ are or who _him_ is—maybe both. He does his best to tell him everything: about Alex’s invention; how he’s being held in an undisclosed location, “I’m afraid they’re going…to rendition him,” Q whispers. He thinks maybe that’s why M had him take a day off, so that Q won’t be around to watch them drag Alex from the building with a black hood over his head. “I’m never going to see him again.” He hunches over, cradling his face, tears flowing freely again. Though he struggles to remember, Q can’t recall the last thing he said to Alex, nor can he recollect what the man was wearing, or what he said to in return. The memories fade so quickly.

“Where is he now?” Bond demands.

“Dunno…a room. Somewhere in the basement. I couldn’t find him. I can’t find him.” His stomach feels sour. “I need…the loo,” he requests, thinking Bond will lend an arm, but is unprepared for the man picking up and carrying him to the washroom where he kneels on the floor and is sick into the toilet. James gives him some privacy, returning minutes later to gently stroke his hair and offer a glass of water, half of which he uses to wash out his mouth, and guzzles the remainder. He flushes the toilet and stands on wobbling legs.

“Come on,” Bond says, escorting him to the bedroom.

On the way, Q moans that this is all his fault—that he should have been the one to protect Alex because the man didn’t know what he was getting into. Q naively thought they were living inside a protected bubble, but now sees how foolish he’s been. “They probably bugged my flat,” he grumbles.

“Your flat is not bugged,” Bond sighs, sliding off his shoes. Q’s a little surprised to see he’s still wearing them. Normally, he leaves them by the front door. Q asks him how he can be so sure and James smirks. “I think M would have at least pulled me into a meeting if he had an audio recording of me fucking my quartermaster.”

Q’s face warms and he huffs. “Still..they’ve been spying on me.”

“Shocking. You’re saying an agency of spies is spying on one of their own?”

The alcohol is still thick enough in his system where kicking James seems like a good idea, but he stops himself at the last second. “I’m serious, James. I’m worried sick. What if they hurt him?” His eyes burn at the mere idea.

The bed dips as Bond sits on its edge and he sighs, looking at him. The man touches his brow again, fingertips sliding south to cup a cheek. “You don’t have to worry. Just get some rest, yeah?”

He’s just about to ask how the hell he’s supposed to not worry about Alex when his eyes slip shut and Q slides into unconsciousness once more.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes, it’s to a sunlit room and a spectacular headache. The clock on his beside table reads 10:15. Late for work. He calls Q branch with a prepared excuse of the flu. Only fair, he thinks, since he hasn’t taken a sick day in years and M is currently torturing his lover. But upon reaching one of the underlings, he’s informed that his schedule reads that he’s off the rest of the week. Whatever M is up to, he wants Q far, far away.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, slowly tapping the screen to end the call.

In lieu of work, Q takes a long shower, brushes his teeth, and shaves. Then he sits in the parlor and checks his email—pages of the usual business: questions from engineers, several subordinates expressing dismay that he’ll be gone the rest of the week and won’t be able to approve field items, but no messages from Alex. Unsurprising, given his particular set of circumstances. He jumps when his phone begins to vibrate across the couch cushion, heart leaping when he recognizes the number.

“What the bloody hell is going on, Q?” Moneypenny greets. He asks what she means, “There’s a huge commotion in the basement. Security’s gone mad. There are blokes in black riot gear charging down the stairs…”

Q’s spine is rigid, his eyes huge behind their lenses. “Is it Bond?”

An exasperated sigh. “Of course it’s Bond, but _what in the world_ is he doing? What’s down there?”

MI6 must go into lockdown in that moment because suddenly his phone beeps and the screen’s text informs that Moneypenny’s call has been dropped.

 

* * *

 

Q’s vacation is unceremoniously canceled by M when he receives a phone call telling him to, “Get the bloody hell over here.”

The full gravity of the situation strikes him when he walks into M’s office and his superior is standing—pacing, actually, mid-stride, when he rounds on Q and angrily jabs a finger in his direction. “Do you mind telling me why your agent, _armed_ , stormed our interrogation room?”

He staggers to a halt and looks past M to Tanner with wide eyes. “I’ve…no idea.”

“Bollocks, Q!” M roars, making him jump a little. “Do you actually think I’m going to believe it’s a coincidence that you sat in my office days ago to discuss the location of 009, and then 007 just happened to storm our facilities?” He’s flushed, a strip of hair that has come loose from the pomade stretching across his forehead.

“Are they hurt?” he asks. Behind M’s shoulder, Tanner shakes his head and he sighs, shoulders minutely relaxing. “Sir, I have no idea how Bond found him. I didn’t know where he was being held.”

“Ah, yes, and I’m sure next you’ll tell me you have _no idea_ how Bond tracked down Mrs. Turner and had her ring the bloody Prime Minister, making all kinds of sordid accusations that I’ve renditioned her son?” M rages, voice raising in volume until it hovers near hysterical in pitch.

Q stares at him, mouth agape. “I’ve no idea—”

He stops talking when M launches into another tirade, during which he starts—and stops—pacing several times, turning to jab his finger in Q’s general direction, issuing a variety of threats against him until Tanner calmly interjects: “Sir, it is possible that Bond did this of his own volition.” He looks at Q with raised brows. “Is that possible? That Bond acted out of concern for a fellow agent?”

Before Q can speak, M wheels to face the other man, which is when Q notices he’s missed a slot while buttoning his vest. “Don’t you spoon feed him more answers! We saw 009 assault Bond during the munitions test and suddenly he’s had a change of heart? Don’t be blind.”

“I’m just saying, it _is_ possible—”

M throws his hand into the air and storms over to a coat hanger to fetch his jacket. “I’ve been summoned to Downing Street to discuss this mess. Despite having been thoroughly disgraced, it seems Mrs. Turner has the ear of some powerful friends,” he seethes, bearing his teeth, “I swear to God, Q, if I lose my job, I am taking you and Bond down with me,” he promises before making a hasty exit, shouting for Tanner to hurry up before he disappears across the anteroom.

Tanner sighs and awkwardly pats Q’s shoulder as he passes. “Don’t worry. We’ll get things sorted.”

Afterwards, he stands in the empty office for a moment, staring out the window. The sky is blue and strips of light dance on the water.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t hear anything for the rest of the day, but a tense fog has descended across MI6. Q can sense it in the wary glances of his subservients, the way everyone seems to be waiting for something terrible to happen. For a period of time, he wonders if they’re all going to be sacked: him, M, Bond, Alex, everyone. But then six o’clock arrives and Q collects his jacket and bag and leaves. No one arrives with an empty cardboard box for him to pack his desk. MI6 security doesn’t escort him from the building in handcuffs.

Moneypenny texts him as he’s walking to his flat: _?_ and he responds, “Nothing.”

His keys jangle in the lock as he lets himself in, shedding his jacket, bag, and shoes, and walks into the parlor, which is when Q freezes in his tracks. Alex is sitting on his couch. He’s pale and thinner than the last time Q saw him, and he flashes a timid smile—barely a curl of lips—and _waves_. He can barely believe it, and something between a sob and laugh escapes his mouth. Something moves out of the corner of his eye, and when he looks over, Bond is standing in the kitchen. The man offers a sheepish smile. There are new bruises on his face. “Told you not to worry,” he greets.

One of the tears slips free, tracing his face. “Do they know you’re here?” he whispers.

Bond shakes his head. “No. We’ve been released. We’ll probably need to debrief, but Frances raised hell so I doubt they’ll want to spend anymore time on us.” Q asks him how he got her number. After all, he’s one of the best hackers in the world and couldn’t find any information on the woman. Bond shrugs in his mock humble way, which means he pulled a move only 007 could execute. “I know one of the blokes who worked with the Turners, before the unpleasantness. I rang him and he gave me the number of the Turner estate.”

Alex is quiet during the explanation and Q wonders if he’s unwell. His face blanches, gaze diverting to the window of Q’s flat.

Maybe detecting that they want to be alone, Bond eases away from the counter and walks over to him. “M is cross, but everything will be all right,” he says, perhaps with false bravado, but Q feels much better hearing the words.

“What did you do?” he asks softly.

He frowns thoughtfully, another shrug, “Caused a bit of a commotion, I suppose.” Bond looks at him, then glances over to Alex, who still seems distracted. He sighs and gazes at Q, “Hope he’s worth all the trouble,” he jokes, throwing in a wink for good measure. Q wants to say something—to thank him—but the words feel too small an offering. And before he can say anything at all, Bond gently wipes a tear from his cheek and lets himself out.

One foot in the kitchenette area, the other embedded in the parlor carpet, Q stands straddling the two rooms for a moment. He feels numb until the door quietly clicks shut behind Bond, whereupon he hurries over to Alex. The man doesn’t flinch or look at him, and it occurs to Q that he may not know he’s standing there at all. “Alex,” he says softly, sitting beside him and touching his face, turning his chin towards him.

“I’m sorry,” the man mumbles.

“Why didn’t you destroy it?” he asks, voice breaking, which seems to pull Alex from his haze.

Q bows his head as he begins to cry and Alex suddenly moves to hold him. It’s the best thing he’s ever felt, and Q clings to him, a wet cheek pressed to his shoulder. Alex is dressed in one of his suits, but the fabric hangs off him in a different way, and Q wonders if he was able to eat during the ordeal. “I couldn’t. I tried, but…I spent so long on it. I thought, what could the harm be? I wanted to keep it for myself.”

He tries to calm himself, but the tears continue to flow. Without verbalizing it, Q had begun to accept that Alex was dead, or that MI6 had renditioned him to a place where he’d never be able to see him again. The miracle of a reunion seemed impossible, but serving the impossible has always been Bond’s forte. Sniffling, Q wipes at his face and leans back to gaze at his pale visage.

“Did they torture you?” He refuses to use the euphemism of _enhanced interrogation_.

Alex’s eye twitches. “No,” he says, adding, “Nothing severe. They isolated me, deprived me of sleep and food. There was loud music…”

Q’s throat tightens. “That’s torture, Alex.” His skin warms in anger. MI6 has full access to Alex’s file. They would have known he has a special sensitivity to loud noises, and they used that knowledge against one of their own agents.

“It could have been worse,” Alex murmurs.

Which is true, but he refuses to say anything that would give their superiors credit for their non-existent mercifulness. He strokes Alex’s brow and cups his face. Q doesn’t know what to say so he kisses him, and that seems to open something inside Alex because he immediately grips Q’s waist and returns the embrace with the intensity of a man who thought he would never experience anything pleasant ever again. “I told them you weren’t involved,” he gasps against Q’s mouth.

“I know,” he replies, dragging Alex forward to kiss him again.

They neck for a while, never progressing to the bedroom, which is fine by Q. He’s reacquainting himself with the little details that had begun to slip his memory: Alex’s smell, how the man’s hands feel stroking his back, his fingers running through Q’s hair; the way his mouth is simultaneously soft and demanding. Eventually, however, the man leans back with the mumbled excuse: “Wait, I have to say something.” His skin finally had some color—a lovely flush—and his lips are slightly puffy from Q’s attention. “I was thinking about it in the room, when I thought I wouldn’t see you again.” Q watches him, waiting, and Alex’s spine straightens before he declares: “I’m in love with you.”

A slow smile breaks across his face because all this time he thought that was rather obvious, but this is Alex, and he prefers to say things aloud to make them official.

“I love you too,” he softly replies.

For the first time since his return, Alex looks like himself when he slowly smiles. “You do,” he replies, meaning for it to sound like a statement, but it comes out as a question.

“I’ve loved you since you charmed my cats,” he teases, pulling Alex forth by the lapels. He kisses his warm mouth.

Q feels his lips curl into a smile; Alex’s warm breath filling his mouth. “I’ve loved you since the puzzles,” he replies.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two loves

Alex spends the night. They strip and burrow beneath the covers, limbs braided, the man’s heartbeat thumping encouragingly and Q listens as if to a precious hymn. His whole professional career has been an exercise in selfless sacrifice, and for many years he has resented Bond since he was always the one left absorbing the fury of M and their supervisors. And yet now the agent has offered him a gift which he can never repay. He has Alex again. Relatively unharmed.

There are lingering effects, of course. Alex wakes him once in the middle of the night because he’s squirming beneath the covers, twisting the comforter’s fabric in his fingers, facial muscles twitching as he fights to tread water within the nightmare. Probably recalling his time in isolation, the music rattling his eardrums. Q sits up and cradles his sweaty head on his lap, stroking Alex’s brow and calmly whispering his name, calling him back to shore until the man’s eyelashes flutter and he’s looking up at Q.

“I’m okay,” is the first thing he says, which is how Q knows it’s bad. Alex prefers to internalize his distress and privately dismantle it like an especially challenging equation.

So much of his job requires reading the agents’ needs that sometimes he wants to ask Bond and Alex if they think they’re really fooling him. It’s too late (or early, depending on how one chooses to splice a 24-hour period) to press the matter, so they curl up again, Alex’s warm mouth pressing a kiss into his errant waves and Q sleeps until his cellphone alarm sounds—a pleasant trilling of bells, nothing too jarring to pull them from the meditative void.

Q turns off the alarm and lays his head on the pillow for a while, looking at Alex as the man gazes back at him. The flat is so peaceful with him inside it that Q is very tempted never to leave again. “I have to go to work,” he eventually whispers. It feels wrong to speak too loudly, as if he could shatter their tentative tranquility. “But you should stay here and sleep. I’ll tell M you’re still recovering. He won’t dare censure you lest he incur the wrath of Frances again,” he grins.

It’s a joke but Alex doesn’t smile. Q wonders if he resents the involvement of his mother and fights the urge to point out that Bond didn’t have a choice in summoning her. She was the only one who could hit the breaks on the whole interrogation. Darkness flickers across his gaze, but Alex is silent, so Q fills the quiet by reaching for his glasses and putting them on, easing to a seated position as he considers the rest of the room. He’s thinking about starting the day: showering, shaving, dressing in fresh clothes.

“I didn’t think they would do that…to me,” Alex murmurs.

The words make Q’s face hot. Even though he knows MI6 was following protocol, he’s furious at M and anyone else responsible for Alex’s interrogation (he’s unsure how deeply Tanner was involved). “We’ll be more careful from now on,” he says, flashing an encouraging smile. “I should have destroyed the device myself.”

He slips out of bed and walks to the armoire, opening the heavy doors to remove a pressed pair of slacks, a collared shirt, and a sweater. By the time he turns back to the bed, Alex is sitting up, his back pressed to the headboard. He’s unsure, but Q thinks the man looks a little better: more color in his cheeks, gaze brighter, generally more alert and curious, which is his usual disposition. “It’s not your fault, Avery,” he says quietly. “It was my invention.”

“And I’m responsible for your safety,” Q says, flashing a slight smile, one that indicates he’s not going to debate this matter with Alex. He will own the guilt, pack it into a small box, and tuck it away into his heart. But it will always live there, just as he has stored away the other times agents have been hurt on his watch.

The loo is filled with steam from the shower and he has to wipe a small circular patch into the mirror so he can see his reflection while shaving. Dressed and shaven, pores still tingling from the aftershave, he steps from the washroom and immediately smells burning bread. Alex has toasted some slices and is currently smearing them with jam when he walks into the kitchen. The man flashes an apologetic smile. “I’m not much of a chef, but I thought…”

Q pauses by the counter to kiss him. “Thank you,” he grins, taking his plate to the island to eat. Alex places a cup of tea by his left hand and sits on the other side of the counter’s corner.

“What are we going to do?” Alex suddenly asks.

Considering him over the horizon of his mug, Q shrugs his shoulders. “Carry on as usual. M wants this to blow over as much as we do.”

Alex quietly digests his words. “What are they going to do with me?”

It’s a good question. He can’t imagine M putting Alex back in the field right now, and they’ll be too spooked to allow him free range in a locked lab again. And yet, Alex is an undeniably brilliant man whose brain MI6 will wish to exploit. He sets down the mug and leans close to Alex, gazing over the tops of his spectacles. “Do you still trust me?”

Without hesitation, Alex says, “Of course.”

“Then let me deal with M,” he says, adopting the confident tone of Bond. He wonders if 007 doesn’t feel certitude in his bones when he says the words either.

 

* * *

 

An ambitious young engineer named Holland has invented a pocket-sized 3D printer. It’s a small rectangle about the size of a cellphone, featuring a red extendable arm. When Q places it on the counter, lifts the arm like an old LP player and presses a button on the side, the 3D printer slowly constructs a blue plastic gun. “It shoots real bullets,” Holland eagerly explains, closely watching Q’s face for a reaction. “Most of our enemies won’t have any idea what it’s capable of. Perfect for agents who will be strip-searched. In future models, we can disguise it to look like a phone.”

Years of experience as head of Q-branch have taught him never to express too much enthusiasm for an engineer’s hypothesis. Desperately hunting his approval drives the underlings to strive harder, and besides, most of their ideas end in flaming disasters anyway.

Still, he has to admit this is a very good idea. He can already imagine a hundred scenarios in which such a field item could prove to be very handy.

“Keep working on it. Notify me when the construction time is under a minute. We can’t have agents waiting fifteen minutes for a handgun,” he cooly instructs.

Holland’s face lights up and he nods enthusiastically, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Q leaves the stark vacuum of the lab and returns to his workstation in the center of Q-branch’s hive mind. He checks the communal board, pleased to find that they’re progressing at a good clip. The hiss of glass doors turns his attention to Moneypenny, who breezes past the busy workers. “Hello,” she greets, flashing a vague smile. They haven’t spoken since the raid on the basement. “M wanted me to remind you of your meeting at two o’clock.”

“How could I forget?” Q weakly jokes. He looks to her, waiting, knowing there is something else.

Her hand ghosts the surface of his desk, as if wiping away invisible crumbs, but suddenly there is a USB drive sitting beside his keyboard. “You didn’t get this from me,” she says, voice pitched low.

Q immediately covers the drive with his hand. “What is this?” he whispers, casting a look around the room to make sure no one is listening.

“Apparently, there was a glitch in the security system and the surveillance footage of 009’s interrogation has been lost.” Her brows arch pointedly as she glances to his knuckles. “That is the only copy.”

MI6 doesn’t have _glitches_ —only deliberate sabotage. “Who deleted it? M?”

“No,” she sighs, glancing towards the doors before looking back to him, “I really think you should just look at the footage, Q. And then destroy it. Don’t make the same mistake as your boy.”

 

* * *

 

“What am I going to do with you?” M gripes before Q is fully settled in the chair. He recognizes this as a rhetorical question, so instead spends a moment straightening his spine and adopting the posture of an agreeable employee. M looks ancient staring at him, sighing as he reaches for a glass of water with tiny bubbles fizzling at the surface. Antacid. Q has disrupted his digestion process. “Here’s a better question: what am I going to do with 009?” This time he directs the question at Tanner, who is standing beside an enormous bookcase, his arm leaned against a polished shelf containing books that are three times Q’s age.

“Let’s approach this rationally,” Tanner advises, “009’s scores have improved dramatically and he’s conversing better with work colleagues.”

“The hybrid program was meant to strengthen agents in _both_ fields,” M reminds, “009 certainly improved in his field scores, but he technically committed high treason in the lab.” M rolls his eyes and takes a swig from the effervescent drink. “I know we’re not supposed to acknowledge that because Mrs. Turner could chemically castrate us all, but let’s approach this rationally, ay? I can’t unleash him into the wild again.”

“Unless he’s under strict supervision,” Tanner suggests, nodding to Q, “We cut off his communication with his quartermaster. Perhaps, if we do the opposite, 009 will benefit from a carefully structured schedule provided by Q.”

Q feels warm, but he keeps his face neutral. “That’s entirely within my purview.”

M plucks the box of antacids from his desk, brow furrowed as he considers the label, perhaps searching for how long it’s supposed to take for the medicine to work. When his gaze lifts to Q, he sighs, “You realize I’ll need hourly updates. I’ll be personally supervising every corner of his research. And if I’m not clever enough to understand it, I’ll find someone who is. He will not be permitted the same intellectual freedom. That ship has sailed.”

“He understands that,” Q promises, even though he’s not sure that’s true. For the first time since their troubles began, he sees a glimmer of light, and is determined to seize upon it.

“You can commit to that?” Tanner asks. “It won’t be a strain on you? Be honest with us, Q. There are no second chances here.”

Q pictures Alex curled up in his bed. “He will be under my constant supervision.”

His superior looks utterly unconvinced, but as a man cornered, without any other options, he relents. 009 is too brilliant to let slip through his fingers, and Q is the only one who has overseen demonstrated improvement in the agent’s performance. “No more muck ups, Q. I need all cogs working in sequence: Q-branch, the Double Os, and that means our tech team too. There was a disruption in the electrical grid that wiped out surveillance footage from the past week. It’s those kinds of errors I don’t want to have to bring to Downing Street’s attention.”

 

* * *

 

Alex has already fed the cats by the time he walks through the door. “I hope you don’t mind,” he greets, “They were crying and I know where the cans are.” Babbage briefly looks up at Q, licks his mouth, and delves back into the pile of meat.

“Not at all,” Q smiles, kissing him in greeting. Alex smells like soap and his shampoo, hair even wavier than usual as it naturally dries. Bathing has invigorated him further, and he looks almost like his old self. “Bored sitting around in my flat?” he teases.

“I’d like to go back to work soon,” Alex agrees, flashing a weak smile, “Did M mention when that may be?” Q drops off his bag by the door and tells him about the meeting: M and Tanner’s suggestion that he work more closely with Alex, monitoring his research. _Babysitting, you mean_ , he says. Q snorts. “That’s basically my job description.”

Alex lingers in the space between the kitchen and parlor, considering the arrangement. “So I would see you every day,” he discerns, smiling slowly.

Q throws a mock scolding look as he collapses on the couch. “We have to be careful, Alex. They’ll be watching our every move. It won’t be like before.” Alex is still watching him with hopeful eyes, so he sighs and adds: “Yes, I’ll see you every day.” The man smiles and joins him on the couch. He’s probably thinking that not even Bond gets to see him that regularly, which is true. They will be spending an unprecedented amount of time together, which M imagines will permit Q to supervise Alex closely. If only they knew the true nature of their relationship. He imagines M shaking the antacid tablets directly into his mouth. Chewing them like candies. “But you won’t have as much freedom with your projects. You’ll have to write out your theses and present them to M. You may have to argue your case to MI6’s superiors. And don’t try to be clever and confuse them. M’s on to that, as well.”

Alex’s brow furrows. “They won’t understand what I’m working on.”

“I’ll go with you and serve as a translator,” Q offers.

The man nods slowly, mulling over their new arrangement. “I like the part where I’ll get to see you.” Q smiles and touches the nape of his neck, running fingers through the damp strands. Dipping down, Alex kisses him, and he draws the man forth until they’re reclined on the couch. “I thought about you…the whole time I was in there,” he whispers, Q silencing him with his mouth. The mention of Alex’s interrogation reminds him of the drive waiting in his messenger bag and Moneypenny’s cryptic warning to destroy it as soon as possible.

His hands run under the hem of Alex’s dress shirt, the one he was wearing while held in isolation. Q tries not to think about that—or the way the fabric is wrinkled from the days Alex spent waiting in the cell—as he reacquaints himself with the muscular ridges of his back. Palms slide around to his stomach, stroking and exploring as Alex coaxes soft moans from his mouth. He’s hard against Q’s hip, which is no surprise but still a pleasant confirmation that—despite all the trauma and turmoil—the spark between them has survived.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Q pants against Alex’s cheek, and the man can only nod and practically lift him from the couch in his eagerness to hurry things along.

Q grins and races into the bedroom, stripping as he goes, happy to see Alex has followed suit so by the time they reach the bed they’re both nude and fall against the mattress. Alex looms over him, Q laughing as he reaches for him and kisses his flushed face. Alex’s eyes are glassy, dazed, surprised to find himself in a happy moment after all the pain. “Will you…” He still has trouble articulating what he needs, “Again?”

“Yes,” Q agrees, already breathing hard, “I want to.”

Alex rolls onto his back, watching as a naked Q reaches to the bedside table to collect their preparation materials. “It felt so good last time,” he quietly confesses and Q smiles, gently stroking his thigh. He’s unsure about so much of Alex’s life, but is fairly certain the man was raised to link sexual desire with great shame. Alex expressing any kind of preference is no small feat.

“You can tell me what you want,” he says, dropping the strip of foils and the bottle to the comforter and worshipfully kissing Alex’s stomach, a hair’s breath away from his rigid length. The man pulls in a sharp breath and looks to the ceiling. “Did you like when I sucked you?” Alex can’t speak. He can only timidly nod, and Q cradles his cock, sliding the head into his mouth. A desperate _Ah_ escapes Alex’s mouth, the man squirming under him, a hot palm cradling the back of his head.

“Avery…” Alex gasps, voice broken, and Q’s eyes slip shut behind the lenses, silently registering it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. He wants to remember how Alex sounds saying his name. Unlike before, he won’t allow his lazy mind to forget such details and this time will consciously store them in a mental reservoir.

He works Alex with his mouth and tongue, tenderly milking him of his first orgasm. The routine is more familiar to the man now, so he doesn’t stammer in embarrassment; rather, lays there, panting for breath, watching with dazed eyes as Q rolls on the condom and spreads the lube across his cock. Alex obediently raises his thighs and scoots lower on the bed so Q has unfettered access. He dips down, finding the little mole, to kiss it in greeting. It occurs to him that he could have very well never again seen it—or Alex—and the thought causes his throat to tighten.

“Tell me to stop, if—” He can’t finish the thought. Alex’s torso gleams with sweat, his chest rapidly rising and falling, which Q finds distracting. Bracing atop the man, gripping a thigh to coax Alex into draping a leg across his back; pressing forward until the burning tightness envelops him. An endless stretch of silence: Alex’s face a perfect mask of pleasure, eyes shut, lips agape. He dips down just in time to swallow a groan when he’s fully sheathed.

The rubbish mattress is a noisy animal beneath them, squeaking and moaning as the headboard thumps lightly against the wall, and yet all Q can focus on is the rhythm of Alex’s breathing and the way his name periodically escapes the man’s mouth in a choked invocation. Alex trembles and tenses, begging as Q’s hips stagger to a halt, “Keep going,” and he does, dimly registering the warm dollops smeared between them—evidence of Alex’s second climax.

An overwhelming warmth pours over him like a wave and Q moans loudly during his release, collapsing to the bed and laying there in a pleasant haze as they recover. He’s aware Alex is touching him, stroking his chest, kissing the side of his face, but he can’t speak.

Eventually, he climbs out of bed to dispose of the condom and bring a wash cloth to Alex. The gesture reminds him of Bond, surprisingly in a positive way, and he’s glad to pass along the caring ritual. It feels good to take care of Alex, to help him tidy up before they collapse in bed together and the man pulls him close. A large hand palms the dip above his rear, a motion only Alex could perform as tender and innocent, as if cradling a precious keepsake.

Q wakes some hours later to a dark room. They’ve separated at some point, Alex’s back pointed in his direction, breathing indicative of a man experiencing a deep sleep. He slides out of bed, pulls on his briefs, and creeps from the room on silent feet with the intention of drinking a glass of water in the kitchen, which he does, but remembers the drive waiting in his bag. Q sits on the couch and powers up his personal laptop, then recalls that MI6 is monitoring the device. He sneaks back into the bedroom and pulls out an ancient laptop from under the bed—the one from his university days, which MI6 doesn’t know exists. It barely works, having been thoroughly destroyed by hours spent downloading programs and devouring memory, but it can still open a USB drive. Returning to the parlor couch, Q boots up the laptop, inserts the disk, and double clicks on the sole folder: a video file of the interrogation room where Alex was held.

He hits pause immediately and fetches ear buds from the jacket hanging by the door and plugs them into the laptop so he can listen to the audio without waking Alex. The footage is black and white from a high perspective in the corner of the room, the camera aimed at Alex’s back as he sits tied to a chair in the center of the barren room. Q squints at the grainy image, trying to determine how Alex was restrained. From the looks of it, his ankles were shackled to the chair legs, while his wrists were handcuffed behind his back. There is a dark strip mashing the hair at the back of his head—a blindfold. Q turns up the volume two bars, which is loud enough to hear the harsh rock music blaring through speakers. If he were to turn up the volume to max, the cacophony would hurt his eardrums, and still it would not be as loud as the music was playing in the room.

 _Damn them_ , he thinks, skipping ahead through the footage. There’s barely any change in the image for several hours—only minute differences as Alex attempts to change his position. Once or twice, a MI6 superior that Q recognizes as one of the silver-haired men who participate in closed-door meetings with M walks in and stands in front of Alex. They remove the blindfold and ask questions like: “What is the invention for?” or “Who instructed you to build it?” or “Who are you working for?”

He can’t see Alex’s face, though hears the confusion in his voice: _To end lies…No one told me to build it…England._ The horrified shake of his voice makes Q feel queasy. Alex is a patriot. He would never betray the crown, but being odd has placed him under a microscope.

Always, they replace the blindfold and leave, the music erupting, Alex cringing and jerking from the force of it. After the first day, Alex begins to thrash in the chair. A few times, he topples over and someone comes in to right him. Q speeds up the rate of fast-forwarding, not wanting to linger on Alex’s most painful moments. What he’s looking for is located at the end of the file; the whole reason Moneypenny gave it to him.

In the last hour of the surveillance footage, Alex is very still, his head collapsed forward so that all Q can see is a tuft of hair and the ridges of his spine. Suddenly, the door blasts inward with a force too great to be explained by Bond simply kicking it in. Smoke pours in from the hallway. _Bond used bloody explosives_. No wonder the riot officers were phoned in. He leans his face close to the screen, but can’t see Bond anywhere. Where could he be? Just then, the music unexpectedly stops. Perhaps there was an ancillary room, the tortuous music’s source, which Bond disabled. Q’s finger jabs the volume upwards, his hand freezing above the keyboard when Alex’s voice floods the ear buds, groaning his name.

Bond warily approaches the agent, temporarily frozen in front of him as Alex’s moans carry. Begging for Q, using his real title. No wonder Moneypenny wiped the footage. If anyone heard this, they would instantly know about the affair. No agent platonically pleas for his quartermaster like this.

He covers his mouth, eyes slipping shut. Q wants to stop the footage, to rip out the drive and smash it to a thousand pieces, but he can’t move. All he can focus on is Alex and his pained voice. How long was he crying for Q? Hours? Days?

Bond yanks the blindfold off him, growls: “Shut up,” and proceeds to pick the handcuffs lock, leaving the metal bracelet to dangle from Alex’s left wrist. Next, he cuts the bindings wrapping his legs. At first, Alex can’t move. He can barely comprehend what’s happening. _Why are you here_? he slurs as Bond drapes his arm over broad shoulders and heaves upwards. “Because I made a bloody promise,” he snarls. Another reason for Moneypenny’s actions. M would quickly decipher that comment as meaning Q sent Bond to the holding cell, which he inadvertently did.

James practically drags Alex from the room, followed by thirty seconds of nothing—an empty room, dissipating smoke, the distant threatening shouts of the arriving riot guards—and the screen goes dark.

Q plucks the drive from his computer and stares at it a moment, then carries it into the kitchen. He places it in a ziplock bag and finds a hammer under the sink. He’s convinced the noise of the metal shattering the plastic device will wake Alex, but after scattering the parts in three separate rubbish bins located respectively in the kitchen, loo, and his bedroom, he turns towards the bed and sees Alex is still sound asleep.

After storing the old laptop beneath his bed and carefully climbing under the blankets, Q tucks an arm beneath his head and watches Alex’s back—the same back from surveillance footage, under very different circumstances. The warm, fulfilled feeling he felt post-coital is gone, replaced by gnawing guilt. He can’t help but feel responsible for all of Alex’s suffering, even though the agent has explicitly provided absolution. Q wants to touch him, to stroke the length of his spine, run his fingers through his hair, furl around the strands and gently tilt back Alex’s crown to kiss his mouth. But he’s afraid of startling the man, so instead watches the gentle expansion and compression of his ribcage, allowing the rhythm to lull him to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He wakes sometime later, dim light pouring through the curtains, still too early for his alarm to sound, but this time when he looks over at Alex, the man is watching him with a serene expression. The corner of his mouth lifts and he reaches to touch Alex’s chest, stroking the warm flesh, fingers tracing the thin coat of hair. They luxuriate in the comfortable silence for a moment, until the memories of the previous night revisit him.

“You’re really okay with me seeing Bond?” he asks, a small voice inside his brain cursing him for meddling with an ideal situation. But is it really ideal if Alex doesn’t fully understand the perimeters?

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Alex asks, his face blank in the way that makes it difficult to determine what he’s really feeling.

Q sighs, inching closer to him. “I don’t know. I just want to make sure. This is all a bit…overwhelming for me. I love you, and I love him. I don’t know what to do.”

Alex rolls onto his side to get a better look at him, a hand cradling Q’s hip, squeezing reassuringly. “I told you: I don’t own you.”

“Is that why you punched him?” Q means the question to sound playful, but he can’t keep the sadness from his voice. His brain won’t allow him to believe Alex’s words.

A flash of regret washes across the man’s face. “I thought he was putting you at risk with his boorishness. And I had assumed he and I were going to be gentlemen about our arrangement, but he chose to rub my face in it.”

“Gallantry isn’t really Bond’s style,” Q quips, flashing a crooked smile, the expression slipping when memories from the shooting range incident come back to him, “He won’t do that again. I spoke to him.”

He wonders at the calmness in Alex’s gaze. Inside Q’s chest is a hurricane of emotions, but after everything he’s been through—after all Q has asked of him—Alex looks at peace. “Why don’t you like the way you look?” Q’s brow furrows in confusion, so he adds: “Our first night together. You said you drink because you don’t like the way you look and it helps you relax when you make love.”

Q almost smiles at Alex’s gentlemanly euphemism. “Someone once said I’m scrawny and it stuck with me, I suppose.”

Alex looks confused, as if he can’t comprehend what Q is talking about. “And that’s why you drink.”

“I’m trying to—I don’t do it as much.” New Years passed as a quiet evening spent at home with the cats, while unbeknownst to him Alex was locked away in the tombs of MI6. Q didn’t go out to a pub. He didn’t drain a bottle of wine by himself. He went to bed before midnight, woken hours later by the sounds of fireworks on the Thames. “I know you disapprove.”

“I disapprove of you insisting that you deserve to be unhappy. I disapprove of you being alone and lonely, drinking yourself into a stupor because no one tells you that you’re beautiful.” Q gazes at him silently, suddenly afraid if he speaks that he’s going to cry. “I love you. You love me. Why do you keep doubting what I’m telling you?”

Alex pulls him closer until their chests are touching, the course hairs rubbing deliciously against Q’s smooth skin. He wraps his arms around Alex’s shoulders and flashes a smile. “Most people don’t say what they’re really feeling. I thought you were just telling me what I wanted to hear.”

“I’m not most people,” Alex says, a playful glint in his eyes. And yes, that is undoubtedly true. “You’ve seen my file. Am I lying to you?”

Q kisses him softly in apology. “No,” he agrees, kissing Alex again, coaxing him into an embrace.

 

* * *

 

They agree to be tactful, within reason. Alex wants to spend the night at his flat again, and Q agrees, so they part the next day with the expressed agreement to rendezvous first at work (in a strictly professional sense) and then later in the evening, after taking separate trains so as to avoid suspicion (sometimes Q sees his engineers on the tube). Alex needs to pick up clothing and toiletries from his flat, and Q would be lying if he denied that there is a warm feeling in his belly at the thought of regularly waking up to a handsome man in his bed. Still, he’s unsure how this _polyamorous_ business works. Is he breaking some sort of rule by allowing Alex to spend multiple nights at his flat? Is it wrong that he wants the man to do so?

“There are no rules. We’ll make things up as we go along,” Alex encourages, which sounds nice, but he’s unsure how it will work in the real world.

What if James shows up one night, wanting to…Q feels a bit sweaty at the mere idea.

It doesn’t take long for Bond to do just that. In fact, the visit happens that very night when Alex is still back at his flat collecting some personal items, unbeknownst to Q, who walks into his flat and glimpses a man standing on his balcony. He thinks it’s Alex until slipping outside and registering the unique build of Bond. “You’ve got to stop breaking into my flat,” he chastises.

“So make me a key,” James greets, cigarette burning between fingers.

Q smirks, hesitating by the door, unsure of what he should do. James decides for him, flicking the cigarette off the balcony and closing the space between them. He wraps an arm around his waist, tugging Q forward and kisses him, his mouth a warm, slightly smokey chamber. The embrace instantly lulls him, his body heavy, yearning to drape against James because he knows the man will support his weight. “Um, wait,” he laughs self-consciously, pulling back, “Alex is coming over, so…”

How does this go? He feels as though he’s standing in quicksand.

“Oh,” Bond replies, brows quirked. Q realizes he’s amused. “I can’t stay long anyway. M’s sending me to Argentina.” Q frowns at him, saying he hasn’t been notified. “No one has. He says it’s of the utmost importance I leave tonight on a red-eye. You’ll be briefed tomorrow.” Bond glances at the door that leads to the parlor. Q wonders if he’s looking for Alex. Then he wonders what would happen if Bond saw him. “You know, I always thought he was a posh legacy masquerading as a field agent.”

Q tenses a bit. “He’s not.”

Bond makes a soothing noise. “I know… _Stop it_ ,” he scolds gently when Q refuses to relax, angry that James is still attacking Alex. “I’m trying to tell you something, so listen.” Q relents, scowling at him, “He’s tough. He’ll be a good Double O. I can tell, you know.” There it is again: the charming, arrogant gleam in his eyes. Q feels too overwhelmed by fondness to smirk or roll his eyes. “I’m glad someone will be here to look after you.”

For a moment, he can’t speak, nor can he look at the tender look in James’ eyes, so Q stares at his hands, which are splayed across the man’s broad chest, fingertips delicately plucking at the fabric of his jacket.

“James..” he begins, voice trembling, “I’m worried about you.” He’s heard that Bond has started seeing an MI6 therapist, but the sessions will have to be suspended until he returns from the field. And besides, he doesn’t fully trust MI6 psychiatrists. How in the world have they cleared an agent with PTSD for an operation? “What if you have a flashback?”

“That’s why I have you,” he lightly replies, belying the seriousness of the matter. “I’m willing to share, but I hope your man is prepared for the same because I’m not giving you up.”

Q says his name again and Bond dips close to him, stopping just short of kissing his lips so their noses graze. He smells heavenly and Q fits perfectly in his arms. With James, he can’t force the words out, can’t ever say he loves him because it feels like saying goodbye. Bond won’t say it for the same reason, and because he’s said it too many times before to loved ones who perished. Three words that have become a jinx for him. Besides, they don’t need to say them. He’s never needed to tell James what lives in his heart.

“I see why you like him. He’s my exact opposite.”

Q almost disagrees. He wants to ask: Then how can I love you both? But the answer is obvious: Q’s needs are complex, not easily satisfied by a single individual. There is no shame in that. He gazes at Bond imploringly, and the man understands, leaning forth to kiss him, Q clinging to the thick fabric draping his shoulders. Leather gloves grip his spine, holding him tightly, stroking with expert precision.

“All right, I must be off,” Bond decides for the both of them, kissing him again and then his brow, Q’s chest painfully clenching. He feels desperate, yearns to cling to James, but scolds himself for being so dramatic. _He’s a Double O, for Christ’s sake. He’ll be fine_. But things are more complicated than the old days. Now, when James leaves, he will take with him a piece of Q’s heart.

He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so instead offers a weak nod, watching Bond walk to the door and cast one last look over his shoulder before letting himself into the parlor. Q remains outside because the cold air feels good against his hot skin, and he doesn’t want to watch James leave his flat.

 

* * *

 

Alex trudges inside, using the key Q had made for him. He looks up from the couch, a smile on his lips as he watches the man walk into the small vestibule and shed his jacket, setting down the travel bag with his possessions. Q gazes down a tunnel of time: five, ten, thirty years from now, years spent watching Alex come home like this, as if they could be normal men in a normal relationship. Bond is right: he could never have a life like that with him. Settling down would drive a man like James mad.

“Hello, hello,” he greets first Heisenberg and then Babbage, and still Q watches, waiting for the moment their eyes meet across the room. A smile breaks across Alex’s face when he sees him. “Hello,” he says again, voice lowered in a way that makes Q feel warm.

“Hi,” Q says, willing his mind to keep this image of Alex standing in his—their—home inside a special chamber forever.

Alex approaches him slowly, perhaps detecting a change in the atmosphere (maybe he smells Bond’s cologne). “Is everything okay?”

He must be concerned because Q’s eyes are shimmering, and he doesn’t know how to tell Alex that they’re happy tears—that he never thought this kind of contentment was possible—and as such he’s terrified of losing it. Love is risky enough when reciprocation relies on another person, but Q has invested his happiness in two people, thereby increasing the likelihood of some outside element shattering their peace. It’s a math thing—he can’t stop running the numbers, realizing the odds are stacked against them.

Alex extends a hand, helping him from the couch, and still Q doesn’t speak. “Did he leave?” the man asks, once again correctly inferring by gathering evidence in the wake of Bond’s visit. He nods, flashing a weak smile, hoping it relays the message: _I’ll be fine. He just has a way of destroying me_. Alex cradles his face, “It’s okay,” he soothes, drawing out of Q a sigh and twin trails of tears that spill down his cheeks, “I’m here.”

It is no consolation prize. In fact, the promise is exactly what Q needs.

**Author's Note:**

> The quiz idea and text is taken from GCHQ's actual Christmas quiz for its cryptologists: https://theintercept.com/2015/12/25/gchq-play-a-british-spy-game/


End file.
